


Chandravanshī

by quagmireisadora



Series: Dear Moon [3]
Category: K-pop, SHINee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Comfort/Angst, Demisexuality, M/M, NaNoWriMo 2020, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 08:22:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27467911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quagmireisadora/pseuds/quagmireisadora
Summary: Dear moon, my moonWhy don't you ever come closer?Even if I run after youI can't reach, I can't reach
Relationships: Choi Minho/Kim Jonghyun
Series: Dear Moon [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1991095
Kudos: 12
Collections: Summer of SHINee General Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for unclaimed prompt #362 from [Summer of SHINee 2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Summer_of_SHINee_2020): "Rookie film maker Minho struggles for inspiration. He goes to a club and is enthralled by the man performing on stage. Jonghyun is an artist who’s trying to build his name in the music industry." Credit to the prompter.

The truth is, Minho doesn’t like sex.  
  
This isn’t to say he’s had innumerable encounters to form a discerning opinion. But he has nothing much to say about it: it’s always too performative and it never feels good. He may follow the women to their flash apartments and he may give his consent, but as much as he enjoys their company over food and wine, when they’re grunting in bed it never truly feels like he wants to be there with them. It doesn’t seem right. It seems  
  
“... like a waste of time,” he admits on an evening out with his mates.

Their eyes are heavy with drink when they consider him through long, nearly uncomfortable stares. For a while he thinks they haven't heard him, or they’re too far gone to fathom simple words. But then the chuckles slowly start before morphing into full-blown laughter.  
  
“Doesn’t like sex, he says!” they guffaw.  
  
“Sure you’re not just gay or something?” they roar.  
  
The reaction is expected, he supposes. He doesn’t see why anyone would consider this a major crisis. So he takes the jibes in stride and laughs along. Jokes along, even. But as his confession grows older with each day, so does his panic. After years of being so underwhelmed by relationships, he starts to realise this is probably as good as it gets for him. This is his normal. And when another date lines up one weekend, he acts as he always does—offering chivalry and generous compliments and expected charm from across the table. As usual they end the evening at the woman’s posh apartment in Cheongdam-dong, quickly proceeding to the bedroom, playing their parts in the charade, and then separating after a few minutes to clean themselves up.  
  
This time, as every other time, Minho doesn’t stay the night.  
  
At a work party some months later, one of his friends slaps his shoulder in a familiar gesture of jocundity before letting the cat out of the bag. “This one says he doesn’t like sex. Can you believe it?! This handsome fucker here! I bet he gets laid so often it’s become a boring routine for him, haha!”  
  
Minho shifts his weight uncomfortably even if his face is grinning and his words are playing. He fails to understand why his insecurity must be advertised like this, at a work-related party no less. But he supposes some people just can’t bear awkward silences. He is bitter about being turned into small talk like this, and yet he can’t protest or it’ll turn into a bigger thing than he would like.  
  
Remarkably, the man being fed this information doesn’t appear to swallow it as enthusiastically as one would expect. He shifts from foot to foot as well, either with boredom or discomfort it’s hard to say. Minho shoots the man a grateful smile anyway, once his friend has naturally moved on to a more serious and professional topic.  
  
Later at the bar he stands with his flute of champagne for a while, surveying the room. There are women at the party too but they don’t eye him. That sort of thing isn’t encouraged among employees. And in any case, most of his colleagues are probably married. It would just not be appropriate. He feels some relief in that knowledge.  
  
“I’m sorry about your friend,” the kind man from earlier sidles up to him after what seems like hours. He waves his own empty glass at the bar and is offered a refill. Non-alcoholic, Minho notices with some interest.  
  
“I... wanted to say something, but we’ve just signed him on for an important job and. Well,” he shrugs, still looking uncomfortable. Like the remnants of their previous encounter are still swirling in his mouth and leaving a bad taste.  
  
“Oh, you don’t have to be sorry,” Minho nods and allows. “He’s always like that. They all are.” It occurs to him much later on the train ride home how sad he sounds when he says this. He makes an attempt at smoothing over their last interaction.  
  
Extending his hand for a shake, he says, “Choi Minho from Conceptual Photography. I—I’m sorry, I never caught your name...”  
  
“Ah, nice to meet you, Minho ssi,” the man shakes his hand and bows a little. “I’m Kim Jonghyun from JT Group. Thank you for hosting us like this,” he gestures around them at the room, still lively despite the late hour.  
  
“Ah, well. Don’t blame me, I had no hand in it,” Minho tries to joke. “It’s always good to meet our clients like this. Put names to faces, you know. Especially just before we’re about to start on a big project together,” he returns the politeness with a little bow of the head.  
  
“Yes, you’re right,” the man named Jonghyun smiles and nods.  
  
A lull settles between their words and forces them to look around or check their phones, almost as if they are afraid of what the gaucheness of silence could force them to do.  
  
“Well, if it’s any consolation,” the other picks up the chisel and begins again, seeming almost desperate now to chip away at the ice between them. “I don’t like sex either.”  
  
Minho clears his throat. “Is that right,” he responds coolly, but there is a warmth climbing up his chest towards his neck and face. “Surprising.”  
  
A pause holds them before the other man escapes with a soft laugh. “I’m sorry, I seem to have made it worse, haven’t I?”  
  
“Ah, no, that’s fine,” Minho nods, but he secretly agrees of course. It **has** made things worse. They are no longer awkward, they’re tainted with knowledge that shouldn’t be spoken so freely to a complete stranger. And come tomorrow morning, when he will certainly think back to this exchange, he won’t even be able to blame this on the drinks.  
  
The only bright spot in all this is that Minho isn’t working on the JT Group project. This is probably the last time they will ever meet.  
  
“Please, let me try this again,” Jonghyun persists regardless. “Uhh, I see you like champagne. I once had the chance to visit a vineyard that, you know, cultivated grapes for fermentation—” he gestures. “See, I had no idea it was such a difficult process, I thought it must be made like all fizzy drinks.”  
  
Despite his instinct to tune out, Minho tries his best to nod and hum at the right places. “Ah, right, because you don’t drink,” he provides impetus for the other to continue. “Yes, it’s a very fascinating process. Of course, quite a new trend in our country.”  
  
“Yes, exactly!” the other tugs on the offering with more excitement than expected. _Maybe he’s a grape enthusiast,_ Minho thinks with some amusement.

“I mean, _makgeolli_ has always been a such a big deal, I didn’t even know there were other types of alcohol until I was in. I think college?” Jonghyun hisses in thought for a moment. “Anyway, my point is. These people spend a lot of time and energy on creating something that. You know. Ends just like that,” he clicks his fingers and sips the entirety of his drink in a few gulps to prove his point. “And,” he coughs a little. “To me, at least. That seemed a little sad.”  
  
“Sad?” Minho smiles, now genuinely interested in the man’s pontificating. “You think champagne is sad?”  
  
Jonghyun smiles back. “Isn’t that ironic?” he says in a tone that’s suddenly softer than it needs to be. “A drink we celebrate with and. Here I am feeling bad about it,” he shakes his head.  
  
“Is that why you’re a teetotaller?”  
  
“Oh,” the jovial note in Jonghyun’s voice seems to have evaporated all of a sudden. “No. I have. You know. Other reasons.”  
  
Minho doesn’t push for any more. The silence returns, stronger and more potent than ever. But neither of them feels compelled to try and break it this time.  
  
Before they’re about to drift away from each other, something pulls at Minho's gut. He feels like he needs to justify himself, or explain his stance. He feels the need to speak up for himself. And so he does. “It’s... it’s like an achievement,” he murmurs. “The more sex you have the more respect you earn. Well. For a man, at least, that’s what it seems to be. Everything we do is like a plot. A method to get more sex. And. I suppose it shouldn’t be but...”  
  
“But this is how it’s always been,” Jonghyun’s tone is unbelievably sympathetic. He nods in agreement. “Yeah. This is how the world works. It’s hard to go against something... as big as that.”  
  
“But I don’t even want to go against it,” Minho admits. He doesn’t know why his tongue is suddenly so loose, he’s not even all that drunk, but it is. It’s like he’s not speaking the words. They seem more significant than that. It’s like he’s only a vessel for them, delivering their message when they command him to.  
  
“I don’t want to be different. I just. Want to be content.”  
  
Jonghyun makes a strange face at that. It’s neither supportive nor perturbed. His eyebrows rise, his mouth hangs slightly open. It could almost be mistaken for surprise. In fact, it’s an expression Minho has never been given by anyone in his life. And yet it doesn’t take him very long to decipher its meaning.  
  
Jonghyun feels exactly the same way as him.  
  
“Well,” he produces after a long hush. He sounds a little dazed, like he’s come to the same conclusion after a long and bloody internal battle. “We do our best, don’t we,” he blinks around the room. “We. We try. To be normal.”  
  
Minho shakes his head. “We’re not normal.”  
  
Jonghyun gulps, and this time his expression borders on frightened.  
  
They exchange nothing else for the rest of the night, even though they stand close to each other for the remaining duration of it. And when the crowd begins to thin, they don’t even trade business cards or bid farewell. They just... pry apart, throwing each other one last look before walking their separate ways.  
  
Minho thinks about the meeting all week. He goes as far as looking up Kim Jonghyun on JT Group’s personnel page. There he finds a photo-less listing under the heading of “research and development” with only a landline number against it. Something about the man had felt stronger than simple camaraderie. Something about the way they’d so effortlessly seen eye-to-eye about a very personal pain had been. Almost vindicating.  
  
He considers the digits for a moment before closing the window and going back to work. It wouldn’t do him any good to lay himself bare like that.

* * *

But it seems like their introduction must’ve left just as strong an impression on Jonghyun. Many weeks after that first encounter, Minho receives word from the man.  
  
His thumb lingers on the notification for a while until he pulls it down to read the full message.

jjong90  
  
2020년 11월 9일 월요일  
Hello, this is Kim Jonghyun. I suppose you may have forgotten me. We met at the contract signing party last month, at the Novotel in Dongdaemun? Anyway, I apologise for the abrupt message but I recently saw a sign very close to my apartment building and it reminded me of you.  
  


Minho is a little unnerved by the message, and is about to open the app to send a reply. But when the window opens, the message is nowhere to be seen.  
  
“Eh?” He frowns at the blank screen, tapping his phone and wondering if there’s a glitch with it.  
  
A few seconds later, a new message takes its place.  
  


jjong90  
  
2020년 11월 9일 월요일  
Hello, this is Kim Jonghyun. I suppose you may have forgotten me. We met at the contract signing party last month, at the Novotel in Dongdaemun? Anyway, I apologise for the abrupt message but I thought I should send you and your family my best wishes for Christmas. I hope you have a safe year ahead.  
  


_Christmas?!_ Such a weird thing to say. An inevitable grin takes over Minho’s face. He decides to humor the guy.

jjong90  
  
2020년 11월 9일 월요일  
Hello, this is Kim Jonghyun. I suppose you may have forgotten me. We met at the contract signing party last month, at the Novotel in Dongdaemun? Anyway, I apologise for the abrupt message but I thought I should send you and your family my best wishes for Christmas. I hope you have a safe year ahead.  
  
Jonghyun ssi, hello.  
  
I remember you, of course. Thank you very much for your wishes. I hope the same for you and your loved ones.  
  
By the way. May I ask what was it about the sign that reminded you of me?  
  


The message is definitely read. Minho feels laughter bubble up his throat. There’s an odd thrill on his fingertips as he waits for a reply. He expects some kind of sheepish response about sex therapy or maybe even a family planning drive. But what he gets instead is a blurry photo of a banner, seemingly taken from a very high balcony. _Champagne Festival,_ it declares in large stylized font, with lots of other illegible information below it.  
  


jjong90  
  
Would you like to go?  
  


Minho feels an odd foreboding go down his spine. It isn’t a familiar sensation. There has never been anything else like this buzzing in his limbs. He doesn’t know if this is his instinct warning him against saying yes or if it’s some other organ, ordering him to reply with the first words that are swimming at the forefront of his mind.  
  


jjong90  
  
Would you like to go?  
  
I thought you didn’t drink?  
  
There will also be a noodle stand, I heard.  
  


The laughter comes again, this time audibly. Minho feels like a child who’s made a new friend. Pursing his lips he texts back in the most formal language he can muster.

jjong90  
  
Would you like to go?  
  
I thought you didn’t drink?  
  
There will also be a noodle stand, I heard.  
  
I am honored by thine invitation and would gladly accompany thee.  
  
lol I suppose I should’ve expected you to be good at talking like that.  
  
Why’s that  
  
Wasn’t your first independent short a sageuk?  
  
The one about.  
  
A king who is abandoned by his ministers in the forest after a hunt?  
  


The perturbed feeling returns. Minho silently curses about getting ahead of himself, accepting something without knowing the heavy caveats associated with it. Adults don’t make new friends, he reminds himself. They simply use each other and walk away. And idiots like Minho give away too much, get too close only to be burned. This us how it’s always been, and it’s how it’ll always be. Berating himself, he decides it’d be better if he proceeds with more caution.

jjong90  
  
Did you find that on our company website?  
  
No, it was sent to us during the contractual negotiations.  
  
Your CV and portfolio was included in the capability statement.  
  
Oh  
  
I thought you knew?  
  
No  
  
I mean yes I knew but.  
  
I guess I didn’t expect anyone to have gone through all that.  
  
You have a strong eye for detail.  
  
I remember my colleagues ranking your work in the top three.  
  
Its a shame management didn’t select you for the project.  
  
That’s very kind.  
  
You’re very kind.  
  
It’s just the truth.  
  
Anyway.  
  
I need to shoot off.  
  
But I’ll see you at the champagne thing?   
  
Sorry I couldn’t make out the details in the picture.  
  
Oh, right, sorry.  
  
83-10, Wolgog 1(il)-dong, Seongbuk-gu.  
  
7:30 on Friday night.  
  
I don’t think there’s a dress code or anything.  
  
Right.  
  
OK.  
  
I’ll see you then.  
  
Thank you for inviting me.  
  


It doesn’t take long for Friday to roll into sight. And when it’s finally staring him in the face, Minho feels more irked than excited. He doesn’t know if he should shave and use cologne like he would for a date. He doesn’t know if he should wear what he would to see his mates. He doesn’t know how he should wear his hair, if he should put on a tie. From the minute he steps out of the shower, everything is a dilemma. It’s like being back in college again—he doesn’t feel capable of making the most basic decisions. And suddenly his father’s disappointed voice echoes in his head. _When will you grow up,_ it asks him in that familiar dismissive tone. _When will you start being serious about your life._  
  
With only an hour to go before their meeting, a small panic attack grips Minho in its unforgiving clutches. He inevitably ends up in his bed, curled against a pillow for several moments as his body is shot with little stones of insecurity.  
  
“Sorry I’m late,” he immediately produces as he bows to the man when they find each other in a throng. They’re in a small arena, open to the night sky. The evening air is cold enough for him to feel reassured about his clothing choice. “I missed my train.”  
  
Jonghyun doesn’t seem too bothered by the tardiness, he’s more preoccupied with something else. “I tried looking for an empty table but,” he frowns up at Minho with a shrug. Looks like we’ll just have to stand for a bit.  
  
“How’s your week been, anyway?”  
  
“A bit busy,” Minho nods. “How about yourself? Oh, there’s a free one right now—” he swiftly leads them across the grass, feeling triumphant when they beat a young couple to it. Still, he shoots them an apologetic look out of courtesy and they wave it away with an equally good-natured laugh.  
  
Jonghyun disappears for a while. When he walks back into sight, he’s bringing over two steaming bowls of deep-fried seaweed noodles with tteokbokki on the side. “Sorry, I ordered before you arrived cause I was really hungry,” he hands a pair of disposable chopsticks over. “I hope you don’t mind?”  
  
“No, I—thank you!” Minho accepts a bowl. “I... was pretty hungry too. It’s been a really long day.”  
  
“Heard you guys are restructuring the JT storyboard team?” the other launches into work chat.  
  
“Are we?” Minho talks between munching tteok. “Sorry, I wouldn’t know. They’re very hush-hush about special projects like that. Commercial privacy and all that.”  
  
“Oh, yeah, no, sorry,” Jonghyun chuckles. “We’re always getting hit by rumours during concept design so. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s all just that. Talk.”  
  
They eat quietly for some time. Minho had always thought he was a fast eater but Jonghyun scarfs his food down just as quick. Soon, he’s surveying a dumpling stall for seconds.  
  
“Would you like to try a drink?” Minho ventures.  
  
“Huh?” Jonghyun blinks at him. “Oh. Uhh. Sorry, I don’t—I mean, please feel free to, if you like, but. I don’t drink.”  
  
“Ah,” Minho exhales, a little confused. If they aren’t going to drink, the invitation doesn’t make any sense. “Well. There’s no fun in drinking alone so,” he concludes. “Maybe we should just eat something else? Let me buy this one, please.” He stands and goes over to the dumpling stall, soon walking back with their order.  
  
The other man worries his lip. “I apologise,” he says after a while. “I should’ve said something earlier but. I guess,” he blinks hesitantly. “Some years ago I was in a car crash. The other driver was. Very drunk. It didn’t end well for them,” his voice is a little hoarse at this. “I took it as a kind of. Divine intervention, maybe,” the hoarseness becomes a chuckle.  
  
Minho stares at him, a dumpling hovering halfway to his mouth. Guilt swims in circles within the pool of his chest. “I—I’m so sorry!” he manages after a moment. “I... I had no idea. I-if I knew I wouldn’t have—” he wants to say he wouldn’t have agreed to come in the first place. But that’s not fair. That just sounds accusatory. Ultimately, he settles with, “I wouldn’t have asked like that.”  
  
Jonghyun gives him half a smile. “Thank you,” he nods, picking up a dumpling from his bowl. “For the food.”  
  
They walk around the arena for a while, taking in all the stalls and cheering at all the buskers. They stop once to buy ugly hot dogs, and another time to try a non-alcoholic gin. A man is selling pinwheels that Minho is fascinated by, and so he gets them one each. They laugh and wave them about like children for a while before continuing to enjoy other novelties around the fair. Jonghyun reveals he used to be in a band, Minho is surprised and asks to know more. Jonghyun says he has a little pup named Roo, Minho admits he used to be allergic to dogs until he turned twelve. Jonghyun scrunches his nose and flashes his teeth when he laughs, almost like a mischievous young boy. Minho tries to remember as many dumb jokes as he can to make the other cackle along. Jonghyun talks about his family—a mother and a sister who still live in the neighbourhood he grew up in—Minho shares stories from Incheon about learning football from his brother.  
  
“Do you visit them often?”  
  
“No...” Minho mumbles. “I left home at seventeen for university and. I haven’t been back since. Eomma visits sometimes, but she stays with hyung and his wife.”  
  
“And. Your father?”  
  
Minho twirls the pinwheel in his hold as they stroll out of the arena, the sound of late traffic replacing music and chatter. “We... don’t talk much.”  
  
“Same here,” Jonghyun discloses. He doesn’t push for more. If anything, he seems just as sympathetic as he did at the party.  
  
They continue along the service lane by the venue, trees rustling and birds singing above them. A bus is stalled nearby, its engine letting out a tired rattle. A man wheels out a dustbin from a loading bay, trundling it over to the sidewalk. Across the street, another man pulls the shutter down on his shop for the day. The city is preparing to go to sleep. It feels peaceful like this, when the frantic rush has subsided and night stills all movement with a lullabye of descending silence.  
  
“Why is it,” Jonghyun starts again in a small voice when they’ve advanced several meters away from the arena. “Why is it that... the people we love and respect the most. Are also the ones that reject us first?” he sighs a tiny cloud. “We spend our lives trying to prove ourselves to them and. And it’s never enough, is it?”  
  
When Minho doesn’t counter this with anything, Jonghyun acts self-conscious. “S-sorry. We were having a good time and now. I’m being a wet towel.”  
  
“Ah, no, no, no, I—” Minho tries to console. “I was just. Trying to think of the right thing to say,” he assures, then gulps, gathering his thoughts. This is the point where he would usually change the direction of their exchange. This where his instinct tells him he should move on to something more innocuous. Because staying on this line of thinking feels like he's sharing a critical vulnerability with someone else. Someone who isn't himself. The idea is reckless. Almost dangerous.  
  
But there have been times when he’s wished that were not the case. There have been conversations he has started with hope of being taken more seriously, but were brushed off without a second thought. He doesn’t want to do that to someone else. He doesn’t want to be so insensitive.  
  
“You’re right. They’re our heroes so we try to meet their expectations but. But it’s always too much,” he shakes his head, drinking in a deep breath. When he lets it out it is a little shaky, a little afraid. He’s not sure if he should keep going or drop the subject here. But it had helped to talk about it once before. It had helped to let it all out, to not act strong. So he continues.  
  
“I don’t know how it was for you but in our house, I was always compared to my hyung. I... I wanted a brother and all I got was a rival. Who was better than me at everything. Even now I—” he lets go of a sardonic laugh. “Even now, when he’s married and about to have a second child. They ask me why I haven’t done the same. What am I still waiting for, why am I not doing what they expect me to do and—”  
  
He closes his eyes and comes to a halt. The footsteps beside him stop moving too. They patiently wait for him.  
  
When he opens his eyes and looks at the other, his face is once again wearing the same emotion as all those nights ago. He knows. He understands perfectly. He is living the same disappointing life.  
  
“They keep asking me if I like men. As if the answer is so simple,” Minho scoffs.  
  
Jonghyun looks at the ground. “It’s always one or the other, isn’t it?” he mutters to his shoes, then turns his face to Minho again. And it may be the light or it may be his imagination, but the man’s eyes seem fuller than they were a moment ago. He looks like he needs a hug. “That’s how they see things. We’re either perfect, or there’s something wrong with us.”  
  
Their feet are the only sound for a while as they walk to Jonghyun’s apartment block. It’s a modern building, not much unlike Minho’s own rental. There’s a watchman ahjussi on duty who calls out a greeting to them. Jonghyun asks after his health and if he has any mail. They chat a while before the man returns his attention to Minho.  
  
“Would you like to come up for tea?”  
  
“Oh! No,” Minho shakes his head. “Thank you so much, but. I don’t want to trouble you any more.”  
  
Jonghyun laughs. “It’s no trouble at all! Well, anyway. Thank you for coming out tonight,” he says. Minho suddenly feels a twinge of dismay for refusing the request. He’s come to discover that talking to this man makes him feel an unparalleled ease, and listening to him doesn’t feel like a service. Extending their time together may not be such a bad idea. But if he were to say something now it would sound weird.  
  
“Thank you for inviting me,” he smiles instead. “It... it was fun.”  
  
Jonghyun’s replying smile is warm. “Please travel home safely.”  
  
“Yes, thank you, please go on in,” Minho bows and motions towards the apartments.  
  
When he’s out of the gates and looking for directions back to the station, he hears his name called out. He turns around and frowns, searching through the dark for a while before he notices Jonghyun jogging over.  
  
“I forgot to say,” he huffs when he’s close enough. Resting his hands on his knees, he apologizes while they wait for his breath to plateau out. “I forgot to mention. There’s—there’s a bar,” he coughs. “A place in Jongno. They do some unique drinks. Anyway I was going to say,” he pauses here, then lets go of a bewildering laugh. “I was going to invite you there. To come see me play music tomorrow night.”  
  
Minho balks for almost a full minute as the other continues laughing. “You—?! Yes, of course! I’d love to come. That. Wow, I didn’t know. I mean. You said. But then. Oh wow. Yes, I’ll see you there!”  
  
“I’ll text you the address,” Jonghyun’s nose scrunches one last time for the evening as he waves and jogs back towards his home. Minho watches him go until he shrinks into a tiny black spot in the distance, grinning at the sight till his face hurts a little and he feels like an idiot.

* * *

Minho doesn’t like taking his dates to noisy places, so he’s a little apprehensive at first. But the woman doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, she looks like she doesn’t care about anything, really.  
  
“I read they make surprise cocktails here,” he explains. “You tell them how you want to feel, and they fix you a drink to make you feel that way. Isn’t that cool?”  
  
“Sure,” she replies blandly. “So how long are we going to be here again?”  
  
Minho blinks down at her. He feels overdressed standing next to the sweatpants-clad woman. She’s in sneakers and no makeup. Occasionally he catches her smirking at her phone when he’s trying to have a conversation. He knows that some people use the app for nothing more than a hook-up, so he’s usually careful about not picking them. Maybe he was a bit careless this time.  
  
“Does Taeyeon ssi have somewhere else to be tonight?” he asks, hoping she doesn’t detect his annoyance in the tone.  
  
“No, I’m just confused, you know? I thought you were DTF.”  
  
Minho tries hard not to scowl at her. “Sorry. I just. Thought you’d like to start with something more. Romantic?” He purses his lips. “Uhm. How about this: if you find the place too boring, we can leave and I’ll drop you home.”  
  
“Whatever,” she shrugs and goes back to checking her messages.  
  
The ambience indoors is very romantic. It’s packed with couples lounging along the bar and at the tables dotting the space. A woman croons on stage under dim red-tinted lighting, her accompaniment consisting of another woman with maracas and tambourine in her hold. Jonghyun must be warming up somewhere backstage because he is nowhere in sight.  
  
They find a table and place their orders. Minho says he wants to feel adventurous, and soon receives a drink with a slice of dried fig floating on the surface. When it’s Taeyeon’s turn, she doesn’t even think before answering.  
  
“I want to feel Chinese.”  
  
Minho laughs and is about to compliment her on her humor when he discerns that she isn’t joking. Clearing his throat, he shares a look with the perplexed waiting staff, mouthing an apology. They leave wordlessly. Minho doesn’t know how to save this date anymore besides trying to make small talk.  
  
“So, what kind of music does Taeyeon ssi prefer?”  
  
“Pansori,” she deadpans.  
  
“Ah. Who’s your favorite artist, then?”  
  
“Why, are you going to tell me what you think of them?” she raises a shapely eyebrow. “I don’t really want to know, though?”  
  
Taken aback by her brusqueness, Minho seals his mouth shut for whatever remains of their evening together.  
  
“Oolong Tea vodka cooler,” the wait staff from before slides the drink on their table and rushes off. Taeyeon takes a sip from it, makes an impressed face, then continues to drain the drink within the space of a few seconds. “Oh, I’ll have another of _these,_ ” she taps a finger on the table, nodding enthusiastically. “Then we can go back to my place.”  
  
“Sure,” Minho smiles politely, turning his attention to the stage as a round of applause marks the end of a set. The stage remains empty for some time, banter and clinking glasses replacing the music. When the lights change again, a small knot of elation immediately tightens in his stomach. He squints and makes out a very familiar set of shoulders emerging into the light, smiling at the audience.  
  
“Oh, that’s—I know him!” Minho hisses under his breath, not really looking over to check if his date is paying attention. He doesn’t care anymore either, all he wants is to catch the eye of the man on stage.  
  
“How’s everyone’s night going?” Jonghyun asks on the mic. There must be something weird with the speakers because his voice is dripping with honey. It’s slow, sweet, sensual.  
  
He assumes a seat on a tall stool and plucking a few tuning notes on his guitar. “You know, I’ve been thinking about a certain someone all day,” he says and suddenly strums a bold blues refrain. “And that someone is driving me mad,” the same notes ring out again. “And it’s making me so sad! Now I wanna be real bad,” he ends in a breathy hush that morphs into the intermittent chord progression.  
  
Someone hoots at the bar. Someone else cheers from the table behind them. A laugh inevitably finds Minho and makes him feel giddy.  
  
“I’ve been hung out to dry~” Jonghyun continues, occasionally singing the words now. “My chest filled with sighs~ And I’ve got to know why~ Baby, you make me cry~oh!” He leans away from the mic and bites into his lip as he plays out an acoustic solo.  
  
Minho feels the energy in the room bloat with admiration for Jonghyun. Or maybe that’s just him. He can’t tell the difference in that moment. He can’t even take his eyes off the other man.  
  
_“You’re being so mean~baby._  
_I ain’t no machine!_  
_This heart is so lean~without._  
_Love from its queen—don’t you see?_  
_I spend all my days~_  
_Walking through your maze~_  
_And each night I pray~ that you’ll._  
_Spare me a gaze—come on, now.”_  
  
Minho covers his mouth, stupefied. Something inside him refuses to believe this is the same serious and gentlemanly person he knows. This is a different Jonghyun. His air is charismatic. His glance twinkles with provocation. His actions are sultry, his voice nearly erotic. His relaxed posture says he belongs in the limelight. His confident face knows how good he is. The dance-like motions of his hands on the guitar are effortless. He looks unbelievably cool, demanding the notice of every single pair of eyes in the room.  
  
Minho looks to his side and finds even Taeyeon isn’t checking her phone for once. When their eyes happen to meet, he shoots her a smug grin.  
  
By the time the song ends, the audience is shouting out cheers or whistling at the end of every line. They hang off of Jonghyun’s words, laughing at the silliness of some of the rhymes and applauding when he plays the final refrain, strings squealing on the last slide of his finger. Minho waves his arms above his head as if he were at a football match. Their glances bump into each other when people are clapping wildly. Jonghyun shoots him a salute in return.  
  
The rest of his set isn’t as rousing, but his lyrics are unique. Sometimes they sound like tongue-twisters, sometimes they are simple sentences. Sometimes they’re questions that cannot be answered. The longer Minho listens to him the more he sees the man’s real self reflected in the music. He’s poetic. His pronunciations are graceful. And when he ends his last song on a shy _thank you_ , Minho can’t help shooting to his feet like most of the bar.  
  
“You hot for this guy or something?” Taeyeon asks when he’s back in his chair.  
  
_Always one or the other_ , he recalls the words, misted quietly into the night. For a moment he considers pretending he didn’t hear her. For a short and frustrated moment he wants to leave her wondering if this date is as big a waste of time as he thinks it is. But Minho has never been one to invite unnecessary conflict.  
  
“I haven’t decided yet!” he yells to be heard over the din, laughing at her confused frown.  
  
Jonghyun comes to see them several minutes after his set ends. He’s still in the leather jacket he had on during the performance but his demeanour has taken a diametrical turn. He’s shed all signs of mistique for his usual politeness. “Minho ssi,” he bows a little. “Thank you so much for coming.”  
  
“Wah, hyung, that was—” Minho has to get out of his seat and stand as they talk, he’s so completely delighted. “I had no idea you were so popular here!”  
  
“You... luckily seem to have caught me on a better night,” is the humble reply. “Some shows can be quite. Unfavourable,” he chuckles.  
  
“Well, I’m glad I came to see you anyway—” Minho feels a nudge on his side and puts an arm around his date. “Ah, I’m sorry for my rudeness. This is—”  
  
“Lee Taeyeon,” she shrugs him aside and places a hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder. “I liked you,” her tone is unnecessarily flirty.  
  
“Ah, hello. Uhh... thank you. Nice to meet you.”  
  
“And you~”  
  
“Why don’t uhh...” Minho places a gentle palm on his date’s back. “Why don’t you join us for a while, hyung?”  
  
“Oh! Are you...?” Jonghyun looks at the two of them. “Are you OK with that? I don’t want to be a third wheel or anything.”  
  
“Anything’s better than a flat tyre,” Taeyeon dismisses and pulls on Jonghyun’s hand, bringing him to a chair. Something tells Minho it’s an insult aimed specifically at him. It pushes his buttons, makes him feel emasculated. He fills with nerves and is left wanting a stronger drink.  
  
Returning to his seat, he maintains his usual impervious smile. Taeyeon is driving a very perky conversation which Jonghyun haltingly participates in. Once or twice, she leans in closer to the man and murmurs something out of Minho’s earshot, then giggles. **He** is the third wheel now. He’s been demoted to being the sad and lonely extra.  
  
This goes on for a while, broken only by the arrival of more drinks and a bowl of snacks. Her fingers splay on Jonghyun’s arms and a smirk carouses on her lips. She sips from her glass, he smiles and yells a question to Minho. She patters her digits on his arm, he scratches the back of his neck nervously.  
  
Taeyeon tries very hard, doing her best at turning the night around for herself. But no matter how natural she may be at it, the look on Jonghyun's face colors the interaction with awkwardness. Whatever is being hissed into his ear, when the man’s eyes widen and flick up to meet Minho’s, he doesn’t look flattered by it. He looks tense.  
  
“So you play here often, hyung?” Minho finally decides to step in.  
  
“I do!” Jonghyun’s loud answer is filled with gratitude. “I do, I do. Once a week. It's an excuse to get out of the house, I guess,” he chuckles.  
  
“Did you study songwriting somewhere?”  
  
“I... not really. I just,” the man shrugs. “I live alone, so. It gives me a lot of time to think and do this kind of. Self-indulgent stuff.” Jonghyun laughs it off.  
  
“I’d. I’d like to read more of your work,” Minho professes. “If that’s OK with you?” he shakes his head.  
  
“Yeah, come over any time—”  
  
“OK,” Taeyeon tugs on Minho’s arm like he is a bell made for ringing. “Home. Now. Let’s go.”  
  
The two men watch with equally baffled stares as she gathers her things and clicks her fingers for Minho to follow her.  
  
“Ah...” he points at her, an apology hanging on his lips.  
  
“Oh, no, it’s. It’s fine,” Jonghyun allows in a gracious smile. “Thank you both for coming.”  
  
Minho worries his lip and dallies even as his date calls out to him. Surrendering after several minutes, he bows extra low to Jonghyun, who raises his can of soda at them both. “I’ll text you, hyung,” he promises before they leave.  
  
Outside Taeyeon’s apartment, she turns on him and puts a hand to his chest. “I’ve changed my mind,” she declares. “I don’t want you coming upstairs tonight.”  
  
Minho blinks down at her and nods. “I understand,” he tries to sound appropriately dejected but inwardly he’s rejoicing. He didn’t even want to see her home. “It was nice to meet you anyway,” he smiles.  
  
As he’s making to move away from her, she grips his shirt and keeps him in place. “Tell me something before you go,” she demands. “Why does a guy like you do this kind of thing?”  
  
“A... a guy like me?” Minho raises his eyebrows.  
  
“You’re too sweet for this shit,” she asserts. “People like you get hurt playing this game. Badly. I see it all the time. You shouldn’t put yourself through this.”  
  
He pauses. “Why does. Why does someone like Taeyeon ssi do this, then?”  
  
She snorts. “You think I’ll find someone to be with me any other way?” she asks, but doesn’t expect him to answer. It occurs to him in that moment that this is the first real dialog they have had. And from the sound of it, probably their last. “We all do what we have to. So we can bear it.”  
  
“Bear what?” he shakes his head. But he already knows the answer. He knows it because it sits in the middle of his chest like a weight that will not move and will not dissolve. He knows it because regardless of the difference in how they live, regardless of being man and woman, they are not dissimilar from one another. She is like him. She is like Jonghyun. They are all being ground to dust by the pressure of the same world: that does not care about them beyond how they look or what they dress themselves in. Regret pinches Minho when he realises he hadn’t once tried to talk to her like she was a real person. Because had he not been so shallow in his appraisal, maybe he’d have found the truth sooner.  
  
She probably hates this farce as much as he does.  
  
“Everything,” she finally answers, letting go of him. “Everything is unbearable.”

* * *

jjong90  
  
2021년 04월 2일 화요일  
Jonghyun ssi hello  
  
Oh!  
  
Hello. Are you doing well?  
  
Yes.  
  
Thank you.  
  
And you? I hope work hasn’t been stressful lately?  
  
No, no, it’s been fine.  
  
I’m about to meet with one of your team managers for coffee, actually.  
  
Would you like to come?  
  
Ah.  
  
That’s probably not a good idea.  
  
Oh.  
  
How come?  
  
Things can get a bit complicated in those situations so...  
  
But!  
  
I actually wanted to see you anyway.  
  
Yes? 🙂  
  
So.  
  
We’re scouting locations for a new studio film and.  
  
I’m going to Gangneung.  
  
Oh!  
  
When?  
  
This weekend.  
  
Wow!  
  
Lucky~  
  
I see the weather’s going to be really nice too!  
  
Would you like to come along?  
  


There is no reply for a long time. They haven’t seen each other for months since the night at the bar. The new year has come and gone, and Minho hasn’t been invited to any other outings. Even if they’ve exchanged short messages in the interim, he wonders if the incident with Taeyeon had somehow soured things enough to ruin their friendship. The idea alone is extremely shameful to him. He doesn’t want to lose a friend like Jonghyun, he doesn’t want to lose the man’s compassion.  
  
For several hours, Minho frets about the silence from his phone. It’s almost the end of the work day when it buzzes again, and by then he’s so fraught he can barely coax himself to read the message.  
  


jjong90  
  
I will on one condition.  
  
Ah.  
  
Yes? 🙂  
  
You’ll go back to calling me hyung.  
  
Oh  
  
I think we’re close enough for that.  
  
Let’s only grow closer, Minho yah.  
  


Minho’s lips stretch so wide they must reach his ears. When he looks up from his phone, he’s shocked to see people in the subway stare at him. He must seem a madman to them.

jjong90  
  
It’ll be a day trip.  
  
The studio pays for food.  
  
I can pick you up from Seoul station.  
  
We’ll leave early so we get some time to walk around town.  
  
OK, good.  
  
OK.  
  
See you Saturday.  
  
Hyung. 🙂  
  
Can’t wait 🙂  
  


_Can’t wait_ , he stares at the words for a long time, almost missing his station. As he rushes up the stairs and walks out into the pleasant spring evening, he feels a warm anticipation spread out from his centre. He doesn’t know what it is about their friendship that makes Minho want more of it. He can’t put his finger on the root of his elation. He can’t say with any certainty why Jonghyun’s attention makes him feel happier than his bigger and more personal achievements. But he likes feeling this way, he decides. It’s been a long time since he’s felt so ecstatic about meeting someone. It’s been a very long time. Possibly decades.  
  
“Oh, a trip to the ocean?” his mates say on Friday night as they pick pieces of cooked meat off the grill. “Sounds romantic.”  
  
They laugh and Minho laughs along. “What’re you saying,” he jokes back. “I don’t mix business with pleasure.”  
  
“Ohhh~ pleasure, he says. Yah—” one of them claps his arm. “Be careful. You give too much they get needy.”  
  
“Ah, come on there’s nothing wrong with that. You want them needy when you’re still fooling around,” another adds.  
  
“You’re right. It’s only a problem when they’re married to you,” the first replies, and they shriek with mirth. Minho doesn’t really enjoy this kind of humour, especially since he knows their wives and daughters. But this is another thing he has to contend with in a bid to prove his manliness. This is another hurdle he needs to cross over; he’s already too different from them. He’s already been accused of being oversensitive and emotional. Doing anything else would heighten the risk of being ostracized.  
  
“Sure, I’ll be careful,” Minho accepts.  
  
“So what’s the girl’s name, anyway?” he’s quizzed.  
  
“Yeah, for all we know he’s just making her up.”  
  
The girl. _Of course_ , he thinks. They wouldn’t find anything funny about two men on a trip. At most, they would probably find it too strange or too boring or just brush past the topic without any real interest. But a girl is much more thrilling to them. This must be another part of their preening, another way of proving how red-blooded they are.  
  
Minho clears his throat and looks around the table, expectant gazes waiting for him to speak.  
  
“Kim...” he stutters, gulping down the compulsion to be truthful. “Kim Jong... h-hui,” he lets out in a deflated way.  
  
“Jonghui?”  
  
“Yah...” they lean away. “So old-fashioned.”  
  
“Don’t tell me you’re dating some wrinkled spinster!”  
  
“Ay! No! Don’t say that! You’ve ruined the image in my head.”  
  
“Oh! There’s a way to fix that. Minho yah! You have a picture of her right?”  
  
He gulps. They look like vultures to him, then. Not friends, not well-wishers, not buddies he’s known for years. They’re hungry scavengers waiting to pluck off anything he doesn’t want them to have.  
  
“Uhh. No. Of course not. I told you, she’s a colleague.”  
  
They sigh with disappointment and distaste. “OK, OK. Be that way, then,” they patronize.  
  
“What? No, I’m serious. Why would I have a photo of someone I’m working with?”  
  
“So she’s not pretty?”  
  
“No, I didn’t say that.”  
  
“Then take a selca next time you see her, idiot!” one of them insists. “Do we have to teach you these things too now?”  
  
Minho blinks as they shake their heads throwing childish insults at him. The sight of their disapproval begins to unravel a spool of panic. He tightens his fists, breathes deeply while they move on to other topics. _Do we have to teach you_ , the taunt rings in his ears. _When will you grow up_ , he remembers his father’s disapproval. The spool uncoils quicker and quicker, its ends slipping off one another to whip and slap free of his control.  
  
Fearing he’ll make a scene, Minho quickly empties his glass and excuses himself to go to the bathroom. They won’t miss him.  
  
The Saturday of their meeting does not disappoint. It is as warm as expected. Jonghyun’s attire is the perfect representation of summer. He grins behind dark sunglasses when Minho waves at him from the distance, strolling out from under the arcade. He must’ve come in on the first train of the day.  
  
“Hello, hello,” he waves. “Nice day for it, huh?”  
  
The sun is not fully up, but the air is already balmy. It’s hard to believe they’re in early spring.  
  
“Yeah. It’s a relief. I hate scouting in winter.” Minho leads them over to where he’s parked.  
  
“Do you have to do this often?”  
  
“Hmm, depends on the production budget,” he explains. “If they’re trying to make a blockbuster, we send out special teams to foreign locations. Macao, Fiji, America. That sort of thing. But for a smaller indie film we stay local and. Send me,” he grins at his passenger as he starts the engine, slowly pulling out of the station and heading east towards the Jungnangcheon stream.  
  
“So,” Jonghyun says as he’s settling into his seat. “I got us—this,” he digs through his bag and holds up a large stack of CDs.  
  
Minho laughs. “Hyung! Why do you have so many?! You could just download that stuff onto your phone!”  
  
“Yah, there’s a charm to this, OK?” Jonghyun defends even as he’s laughing at himself. “These things break, they go scratchy. They need to be protected, you know? Like something that’s alive.”  
  
Minho hums for a moment before bursting into more giggles. “I’m sorry, it sounds very sentimental but. That stack is bigger than your face,” he cackles.  
  
“You can roll down the street while laughing, can’t you?” Jonghyun teases.  
  
Minho only chuckles louder.  
  
They spend the drive munching on snacks and sharing inconsequential banter. The honorifics fall away naturally. They talk about their favourite music, recommend their favourite movies, rave about the kind of food they prefer to eat in warm weather. They even talk about their ideal beach holiday. When they’re not talking, Jonghyun hums along with the music. His voice is just as full-toned in a car as it is through a microphone. Minho constantly praises him until he’s told to stop by his bright red companion.  
  
Nearly two hours into the journey, they break for a rest to stretch their legs. Green hills and valleys surround them. Minho remembers coming out here with his brother to try out the biking trail. The memory is as beautiful as the sights greeting them. Drawing a lungful of clean countryside air, he brings out his camera and decides to take a few photos of the view.  
  
“So what got you into this line of work?” the other asks while watching him work, sipping from a large bottle of water.  
  
“I’ve just... always liked movies,” Minho shrugs. “But. There are some movies that—you know how, when you experience something that you enjoy so much, you wish it went on for longer?”  
  
“Like. An album?” Jonghyun suggests. “Or. A meal?”  
  
“Or a book,” Minho adds. “Or someone telling a story in a very interesting way.”  
  
“Hmm...” the other nods slowly. “So this is your way of making your favourite movies last longer than they did.”  
  
“... something like that,” Minho replies. “Or. I guess it's not the movie itself but. The experience of watching the movie. The way it made me feel. I want more of that feeling.”  
  
Jonghyun smiles at him, crossing his arms and leaning against the back of the car. “You talk like a very artistic person.”  
  
“Are you laughing at me right now?”  
  
Jonghyun giggles. “No, really! It's refreshing to hear you talk.”  
  
Minho gives him a modest smile before aiming the camera at him. The other groans and puts his hands up, blocking his face. They joke around on the side of the road for some time until Minho notices the time and rushes them back into the car.  
  
When they’re about to arrive at the town centre, he asks the other to find the fastest way to the beach. The sun is up and burning bright. Locals and tourists are milling about, heading for the waves or lazing in cafes or working in restaurants. “Wah, so lively,” he comments to hummed agreement.  
  
Just as they’re about to park by the waterfront, Jonghyun’s stomach complains.  
  
“Hyung!” Minho yells, shocking the other. “You should’ve said something earlier!”  
  
“Yah... why’re you like this? You were so serious about the time I thought—”  
  
“Food comes first,” Minho lays down his one rule. “Always. Look, there’s a sundubu place, let’s go.”


	2. Chapter 2

Over the next few months they go on several excursions around the country—sometimes Minho takes them to places he remembers fondly, sometimes Jonghyun looks up places he’s never visited. They camp by the Imjin river. They ride the monorail at Haenam. They take a ferry around Baengnyeongdo, they drive east to visit Naksansa temple. Jonghyun brings his guitar along once or twice, singing for them on a windy afternoon as they sit overlooking the East Sea. Minho often packs his tripod, setting it up overnight to catch the trails of stars. They try fishing, they eat strange local delicacies, they even make an attempt at learning Jeolla satoori. Some trips run the length of a weekend, some don’t take more than half the day. Some get washed with rain, some end with them back at a café in Seoul. Each journey leaves something special inside Minho. Each is filled with a tranquility he hasn’t felt since he was a child.

One evening after a long trek through the misty forest of Wollyubong, they find themselves sighing under a gazebo as they marvel at a sparkling valley. Minho eventually lies on his back and aims his camera at the decorated rafters. “I could spend my life in a place like this,” he murmurs.

“I know what you mean...” Jonghyun agrees, leaning over an ornamental parapet. He looks as at peace as Minho feels. “But. Is it even possible to live so far from the rest of the world?”

“Hmm... I’m not as impressed by the rest of the world,” Minho mutters, drawing out a chuckle from the other.

“What’s this new cynical phase you’re going through, eh?” Jonghyun plops onto a seat, grinning at him.

“Just...” Minho pouts, flicking through older photos on his camera and deleting the less satisfying ones to make space for more. “Thinking about things.”

“Hmm?” the other encourages.

A long moment of silence passes in which they exchange a bottle of water and some tired exhales. Minho clicks a few more photos before giving up and lying in place with his eyes closed.

“Someone said something to me, a while ago,” he begins after what seems like days. “Does hyung remember Taeyeon ssi? She came to see you at the cocktail bar that time.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jonghyun scoffs. “I remember her.”

“She said... she said we do our best to bear things,” Minho recollects. “That we try everything we can. Do you agree with that, hyung?”

Jonghyun lets go of a noisy huff. “Not right now, but sometimes, yeah.”

Turning to his side, Minho looks at his companion. “But. What if more and more things become unbearable until...” he blinks. “Until we just feel. Cheated.”

“I... could see that happening,” Jonghyun’s answer is measured, but whether he’s being careful for his own sake or for Minho’s is not easy to distinguish. “I guess. When we grow up being promised a specific brand of happiness, and we work hard to get to it, only to find that. You know. It means nothing to us—”

“That it’s superficial,” Minho adds.

“Yeah, exactly,” the other nods. “It’s natural to feel wronged when that happens.”

“But,” Minho hesitates. “But where does that leave us? What do we do with that?”

Jonghyun sighs again. “I... I don’t think anyone has an answer to that. If there is one.”

Minho looks back at the roof, tracing colourful flowers with his vision. “I just don’t see a reason to. To engage with anyone any more,” he murmurs, more to himself than anyone else. “I don’t see why I need to be around other people any more.”

Jonghyun doesn’t try to answer him or console him. They stay on their noiseless island for a long time. But time has stitched them closer than expected. Their silences are neither strained nor uneasy. Sunlight cuts the air between them, blanketing the short distance in warmth. Minho closes his eyes again and steeps in the babble of the stream far below them. This time, this short expedition feels like an escape. They’ve stolen away from the world to something that matters more, much more. This nondescript pavilion has become their refuge, far out of reach of anything that could hurt or make them feel smaller than they are.

Minho feels some strength return to him in that knowledge.

“So are you still seeing her?” Jonghyun asks when he’s driving them back from the reserve.

“Hmm?”

“Taeyeon ssi,” the other specifies. “She seemed interesting, to say the least. Are you still with her?”

“Mm, no, we went our separate ways that night,” Minho lazes in the passenger seat.

“Hmm, not your type of girl?”

“I don’t have a type, though?”

“Of course you do!” Jonghyun chuckles. “Everyone does. They just don’t realise it until it’s pointed out to them.”

“What about hyung, then?” Minho counters. “Does hyung have an ideal type of girl?”

“Nope!”

“Ho! I thought **everyone** has a type?!” Minho teases.

“Yes, they do,” Jonghyun laughs, then adds in an undertone. “Just not me.”

“Playing games...” Minho shakes his head. “Why are you asking, anyway?”

“Mm,” the other shrugs. “Just making small talk.”

“Sure you aren’t trying to set me up with your noona?”

“Actually, she would love you to bits.”

Minho breaks into peals of laughter. “Wah, here I was thinking—and you’re really playing matchmaker!” He claps his hands as he laughs. “I can’t believe it. I caught you red-handed! This is so funny!”

Jonghyun grins. “Do you want to meet her?”

“Of course!” Minho nearly yells out. “I have to see for myself if there’s a reason for all this! Hul... she must be pretty?”

“Yah! What do you mean?!” Jonghyun demands playfully. “Everyone in my family is pretty, OK? Men, women, dogs. Everyone. Don’t hate!”

Minho claps his hands again, howling at the ridiculousness of the situation.

By the time they’re back, the sun is about to set. Jonghyun drives them to city hall station and stops the car outside Deoksugung to let Minho off. “I’ll find a parking spot and see you back here,” he waves. “She’s coming out at exit one. Says she’s wearing a bright yellow shirt and a red skirt. See you in a few?”

Minho spends a few minutes in the square outside the palace gate. The intersection is busy. Crowds pass by him from all directions. With time to pass, he reads the hanja sign above the entrance, whispering its pronunciation to himself over and over. In his last year at school, he’d met a kindly sunbae who’d volunteered to help him learn his characters. He would stay back in the library, making silly cartoons and telling funny stories to help Minho memorise each brushstroke. “This is the view outside your window on a bad day,” he’d doodle the character for _rain_. “This is you getting squished under a lot of books,” he’d explain while drawing the word _study_. “This is what someone’s bad handwriting looks like,” he’d chuckle as he scribbled _write_. Minho recalls feeling more than grateful to the older boy. He remembers wondering what it would be like to befriend someone like him. But his mind doesn’t want to go farther than that. It doesn’t want to nudge him towards his attempts to make such a friendship happen. It wants to negate those memories as if they are figments of his imagination—

“Excuse me?” a voice speaks next to him. He turns to find a short woman craning up at him. She compares him to something on her phone then smiles. “You’re Minho ssi, right?”

“Ah!” he bows, recognizing the same glimmer in her eyes as Jonghyun. “Hello. It is so nice to meet you. I’m sorry, hyung never told me your name?”

“Kim Sodam,” she grins and nods towards the palace. “You... seem to like this place a lot?”

Minho blushes when he realises she must’ve heard him muttering to himself like a crazy person. “O-oh...! Y-yes. I—” he gives an awkward laugh before giving up any pretense. “The first time I ever visited Seoul, this was the first place my parents brought me to see.”

“That’s right! Jonghyunnie said you’re from Incheon,” she says, then bows a little again. “Nice to meet you.”

He smiles back.

They eat samgyetang for dinner. Sodam and Jonghyun are very bubbly together. They call each other names and laugh at each other’s stupid jokes. They even feed each other a few morsels of soupy rice. Sodam narrates embarrassing stories about their childhood, Jonghyun tries to shut her up by singing over her voice. They’re noisy and ebullient. They make Minho a little jealous. He thinks back to the last time he’d ever had a proper meal with his own brother and can’t come up with an answer.

“But I’m surprised that someone as cool as Minho ssi is friends with this guy,” Sodam rubs a hand over Jonghyun’s scalp. He tuts in annoyance but makes no move to push the contact away. “Isn’t he... a little boring?”

“Only sometimes,” Minho joins in on the teasing and is rewarded with a high-five.

“Sure, sure, gang up on the poor man, why don’t you?” Jonghyun oozes sarcasm, which only makes the other two laugh harder.

At the end of their meal, he groans and pets his stomach. “I need to walk this off.”

“Oh, hyung! Lets go to the Stone Walkway,” Minho suggests.

“Why? You want to break up with me?” the other jokes.

“Maybe I do~” Minho teases.

Jonghyun pulls a comically weepy face. “Uuu huu, noona! I’m being dumped!”

“Yah. Leave me out of this mess,” Sodam snorts and gets up to pay.

The old palace wall is lit along their path. They amble its length, eating ice cream and talking about work and books and politics and sports. It’s simple. It's like he’s known the two siblings for years. They don’t make ridiculous demands of him. They don’t question his apparent deficiencies. They accept what he is willing to share with them, and leave the rest for him to keep. He wishes he had more friends like them.

That night, before he goes to sleep, Minho writes a quick message to Jonghyun.

jjong90  
  
2021년 05월 15일 토요일  
Hyung  
  
As always I really enjoyed going out today.  
  
Sodam noona is very fun to hang out with and I can see you’re both close.   
  
I wish I had that too.   
  
But you didn’t make me feel left out, and for that I should say.  
  
Thank you.  
  
I felt normal today.  
  
I feel normal with you.  
  
Thank you, always.  
  
🙂  
  


* * *

On his second visit to see Jonghyun play to a full bar, Minho goes alone. The applause isn’t as riotous as the last time, but the songs they’re treated to aren’t the kind that would warrant such a response anyway. They’re solemn, in their melody and in their words. They possess a certain gravity that isn’t as playful as his other writings. He plucks the notes carefully. He sings with a deep sincerity. He builds stories with his music, leading them all on an odyessy that spans universes and galaxies. They follow his tune, hypnotized by its gentleness. And at the end of the set, Jonghyun closes his eyes like he's unwilling to leave his own trance-like state. 

“Hyung,” he’s asked when they’re lounging at a table after the performance. “What was that last song you played? The English one?”

“Ah, that—” Jonghyun chuckles, munching on fries. “It’s called _Stairway to Heaven_. That’s not something I wrote. Although I _wish_ I had.”

Minho nods. “What’s the song about?”

“If I’m honest,” the other grins. “I’ve been thinking about something you said to me. Well, a lot of things you’ve said to me and. When I was preparing for tonight, this song came to mind.” He sways a little in his seat, half-listening the act on stage. “It talks about. You know. Someone being drawn to a happiness that they can buy. That they can. Wear on themselves, physically. To show to the world. And how that isn’t real happiness. That’s just a shadow, on the outside.”

Minho hums. “So what does it say about true happiness?”

“It says,” Jonghyun pauses and thinks for a moment, like he wants to get his words right. “There are a thousand ways to be happy. And if you find your way, even if it’s not the same as everyone else, you should still walk towards it,” he smiles. “If you can, you should live how you like.”

“Does that...” Minho dithers. He doesn’t want to invade the other’s privacy past anything he isn’t readily offered. “I mean. What makes hyung happy?”

“That’s easy,” Jonghyun raises his glass of soda. “Music. Food. Friends. Work too, sometimes. But only because it lets me have the time to do the other things I like more than work.

“What about you?”

Minho thinks about his answer for a while before giving it away. “Being with other people. Doing things that come easily to me. Learning about new things—like this song,” he blinks. “Sounds boring, doesn’t it?”

“Does it matter how it sounds?” Jonghyun asks, then shakes his head in answer to himself. “That’s what the lyrics mean. No one else has to approve your happiness. No one else has to witness it. It’s yours, only yours. In a world we share with so many people, how much belongs to only us? Just this thing, right?”

Minho mulls over this for a while, then laughs. “Hyung knows how to cheer someone up.”

They enjoy the rest of the performances that night before tumbling out of the bar and heading home. The air is hot. The traffic is loud. Crowds stream along the sidewalks, laughing and nattering. Minho floats in the midst of all this, inviting the city to swallow him into its depths. He doesn’t remember what he drank at the bar but it’s gone to his head and made a home in it, of this he’s sure. Now it dictates him to let go, to let himself out and let the world in. Now it turns him carefree.  
  
“Hyung,” he chuckles, feeling unsteady in his place. There is no response. He looks around, searches through a vast multitude of strangers for a familiar face. “H-hyung...?” In a confused moment he whips around for any sight of his friend until he feels a hand on his wrist tug him along.  
  
“Stay close, now,” Jonghyun murmurs and coils their arms together. The band of his fingers radiates a strange golden heat. It’s protective. It reassures Minho, telling him he will never be lost as long as this hand holds him secure. He places his own clammy fingers on the contact, letting himself be towed block after teeming block.  
  
They come to a halt at a large square somewhere. A web of pedestrian crossings. He doesn't bother to read the signs. Jonghyun and his grip will lead him to safety, he trusts this. Gulping in his inhales, he lets them go with an odd satisfaction.  
  
The city is far too bright for stars to be visible overhead, but the moon is prominently full. Minho stares at it for a few minutes, whining and voicing his wish to have his camera on him. Jonghyun eventually follows his gaze and chuckles, pulling him along when the signal changes. 

“You know,” the man starts as they weave through more crowds and walk towards the relative desolation of the subway. Minho leans in closer so he can hear better. “Thousands of years ago, in some parts of the world, they believed that there are two kinds of people,” he gestures with his free hand in explanation. “Those born from the sun, and those who come from the moon.”  
  
Minho nods his acknowledgment. When Jonghyun lets go of his wrist, he leans away with some disappointment. The moving handrail of an escalator becomes his new support.

“The first kind,” the other continues. “They’re pretty strait-laced. Always following the rules, always doing the right thing. Always being... perfect, you know?” he pauses. “But the other kind. They’re not as perfect. They’re a little... flawed. Like the moon.”

“So they’re,” Minho frowns, shaking his head in question. “They’re not. Good?” 

The other laughs. “No, no, that’s not what it means. These people... it means they’re more likely to bend the rules so they can reach the same goal. Something like the song we were just talking about—” he points, poking his finger into Minho’s shoulder. “This difference in nature. It isn’t about good or evil. It’s about how people choose to live. We’re always told that there is a right way to be, and there’s. A deviant way, that’s what they say, isn’t it?” 

“Mm,” Minho blinks. He gulps, gathering his thoughts despite the fog of alcohol. “So does that mean that anyone who isn’t living. In an acceptable way. Comes from the moon?”

“Maybe,” Jonghyun shrugs and smiles. “Maybe every person who behaves in a way we call strange or weird is. Is actually like that because of who they descend from. So it’s decided by something they don’t control. They are just. Being how they were always meant to be. Or maybe. Maybe that’s unfair. Maybe everyone is capable of being both. They can be perfect, but they can also do things in their weird way. There are too many people in the world to put into boxes like that, don’t you think?”

Minho sighs. “So does hyung think. Does this mean the part of us. You and me. The part that doesn’t feel normal is... because we come from the moon?”

“How easy would that be? To have something like that to blame?” Jonghyun chuckles as his train arrives. He waves casually, dispelling all of Minho’s thoughts with his grin. “I’ll see you later.”

But if his life is written in the stars, then their glimmer leads Minho back to the moon. He squints, standing with his hands in his pockets and peering at the barricade between the platform and the void. He doesn’t usually pay much mind to the poetry on subway doors because he never understands any of it. But this time the white letters stare him down until he returns the attention. 

_The familiar moon_  
_Seems ready to come down if called,_  
_It seems ready to give voice_  
_To a pure resonant song_

As if his vision could pass through concrete and steel, Minho turns his head up, half-expecting a ball of light to be mid-descent. He imagines it advancing towards him, approaching him with a silent benevolence of something angelic. Something full of forgiveness for everything that weighs him down with guilt. He almost reaches out his hand before chastising himself and touching his forehead. He curses himself for drinking more than he can handle.  
  
Jonghyun’s words frolic in and out of his grasp as he leans against a pillar and waits for his own train.

The night gives him little rest. He tosses and turns in bed, tries to will his brain to shut itself down, tries to squeeze his eyes shut like it’ll help. But it doesn’t help. Nothing does. And when he’s too keyed up to stay under the sweltering blankets, he walks around his apartment looking for something to cool him. He drinks a glass of milk, he listens to soothing music, he even considers going out for a run.  
  
But his thoughts are already sprinting far ahead, leaping over the obstacles and barriers he has placed to keep them in check. They race in a straight and sharp line, pedaling faster and faster, surpassing far out of his limited control. Watching them careen towards the horizon of his senses, he stares out of the kitchen into a darkened service shaft. White plaster and black windows regard him in return, inviting his eyes to climb higher and higher—as high as they can go until a sliver of sky greets him.  
  
“Oh…!” he gasps.

Shot with a thunderbolt of inspiration, he rushes to his desk. In a flurry of pencils and notebooks, he stumbles into the chair, breathes for a few seconds to gather his thoughts, and readies himself to start writing. 

“Everything is still,” he scribbles. “Everything is a silent dream. The moon is an intoxicating sheet of silver. Its hoary light cuts the man in half. He is no longer whole. He is no longer his complete self. There is an alteration in him that unages his old and withered body. He is returning to boyhood. He is becoming a younger and braver version of himself. And he is resolute. His intent stays true and solid. He stares at the night and the blushing night stares in answer. He knows what he must do now. And so he does.

“With one brick, he starts his flight of steps, piling the blocks over one another and slathering their joins with mortar. He does what he has done all his life. He makes what he spent his entire existence making, and his decision has granted him a second lifetime. Or maybe this is the result of his karma. Maybe he has earned the supplementary years that now hang off his gradually rejuvenating self. He amasses his new strength, amasses new bricks of resolution, and lays it all on the ground of his task.  
  
“They start as meaningless red rectangles but soon they assume the forms of a steep ramp, a high incline, a tiny hill. They change into whatever he wants them to be. They change and he changes, growing larger and younger and more powerful with each added brick. He builds through the night until the sun breaches his concentration. And then he rests. But he knows that more nights will follow. He knows that more evenings will call to him. He knows how long he must toil before he is done. He knows and he is determined. He will build this stairway to heaven until it is complete, and the moon is in his arms.”

* * *

More time passes and Minho soon begins to feel like a part of Jonghyun’s family. _An honorary Kim,_ Sodam jokes as she watches him tentatively pet Roo despite his inexperience. He’s often invited to share home-cooked meals—Kim eomoni goes as far as making him extra side-dishes that last him a long time. He feels grateful for their generosity, but he doesn’t know how to thank them for it.

“You don’t owe us anything,” Jonghyun denies him when he tries to hand the other an expensive present to share with his family. “We just like you.”

Minho feels his heart swell at that. “I... I’d still like to do something nice.”

“Hmm... how about taking us on a trip? All four of us?”

The suggestion is made real one afternoon when Minho drives them north. Incheon bridge curves around the coast like a graceful snake. He grins brightly whenever his passengers gasp and interject at the blueness of the sea, or at the gracefulness of the two iconic giant cable-stays. He boasts facts about its construction to impress them further: how long it took, how much it cost, how many marathons he’d run along its entire length.

“Wah... I forgot something like this exists in our country,” Kim eomoni hushes. “When they built the olympic stadium there was such a fuss. It was like they were looking at the eighth wonder, but this!” she marvels.

“We’ve even conquered the ocean with this, haven’t we? It’s almost obscene, in a way,” Sodam muses and the others make reproachful noises at her for dampening the mood. Even Roo barks at the comment. “OK, OK! Wow, so many critics!”

They laugh, they joke, they eat and walk and spend the length of the day together. Minho takes plenty of photos throughout their visit, and while the women readily strike poses Jonghyun is a shy. Hesitant.

“Come take a picture with me, hyung,” Minho insists.

“That’s OK...”

“Tch... come on. It’s not like I’m going to post this anywhere!” he’s cajoled. “I need something to remember you by and I don’t even have a proper selca of us.”

“Heh. You sound like you’re never going to see me again,” Jonghyun chuckles, but there’s a hint of nervousness in the words.

“Where would I go, leaving you behind?” Minho tries to lighten the mood by acting melodramatic, quoting dialogues from old movies.

“Oh... he’s good at that!” Kim eomoni compliments. “You should be an actor, Minho goon! You’re so tall, too! Why work in dark rooms like an old man. It’s wasted talent!”

Jonghyun laughs tiredly. “Ah... fine,” he acquiesces. “Let’s take a selca, then.”

And from that point onward, Minho makes it a habit to click a photo of them together every time they meet. He saves each one carefully, in an especially dedicated folder. They aren’t particularly artistic to look at—some are blurry from movement, some are too dark and grainy. Some feature too much of their visage, some very little. Some are obscured by Roo’s wet snout. But time is captured and stored within these photos even if it slips out of Minho’s grip with each day. His time with Jonghyun, the memories he makes and the happiness he feels, they are all encapsulated in the folder.

Of course, the more time he dedicates to the man, the less he spends with his other friends. They notice and call him out on it, dragging him to drinks one evening and forcing their company on him.

Like before, he tries to pretend having a good time. They tease each other, they pour each other drink after spilled drink. They’re exactly the same as they have always been. But the experience feels so pale when compared to his quiet exchanges with Jonghyun. When Minho sets his silent reciprocations of sympathy side-by-side with these men who could feign compassion at the drop of a hat... they look so strange to him, almost like caricatures of real human beings.

“So!” one of them grips Minho’s shoulder. “Tell us about this girl you’ve been spending all your time with.”

“What girl?”

They tut in annoyance. “You know! The one you’re always going away on trips with. What was her name again?” They click and hiss. “Jungah? Jungjin?”

“Jonghui,” Minho corrects them and immediately regrets it.

“Thaaaaaat’s the one,” they wag their fingers. “Yah~ our Minho’s all grown up! How long have you two been together now, eh?”

“Must be close to a year, right?” another voice chimes in.

“Come on,” they demand. “Show us a photo. Let’s see what she looks like.”

“Bet she’s a bombshell,” they joke.

“Been to the beach, right? Got any bikini shots?” they laugh.

“Come on, share a little with your brothers, man. We’ll only look. No touching,” they mock.

The disgust suddenly swells to such intensity in Minho, he feels like stabbing their hands with his pair of steel chopsticks. Shrugging the touch off of himself, he gives each one of them an angry look and feels sickened by their returned gawking. _You’re not my brothers,_ he wants to assert to them. _You’re not my friends. I don’t even like any of you._

But he grasps the situation well enough to know every word would be wasted on them. So he simply stands and gathers his things. “Sorry, I have to go,” he mutters, turning his back on them and walking away.

Waiting for the train home, it crosses his mind that he may come to regret this one day. When he is older and wiser he may see the situation from their viewpoint and finally conceive their behavior as nothing more than a difference in perspectives. Their actions are shaped by their individual experiences. Their lives are defined by their personal beliefs and motives. While he may not see eye-to-eye with them on most matters, who is he to question them? Who is he to judge them?

“Hyung,” he asks Jonghyun the next time they’re sitting across from each other at a café. “What do you think matters the most when we meet other people?”

The other takes a sip from his iced Americano. “How do you mean?”

“So,” Minho tries to explain. “Being around people, even if those people may not be as. I don’t know, as pleasant as you’d like. It’s still better than being alone, right?”

“Hmm… depends on each person,” Jonghyun replies, then tries to clarify. “I know it’s a difficult life to be alone all the time, I know. But. When everyone around you is. Less than ideal, as you said. Would you rather spend your time stewing in your own thoughts or would you let it be occupied by those other people?” He smiles. “Tough choice, right?”

Minho swirls his drink. “What would you do?” he asks after a while.

“Me?” Jonghyun hisses in thought. “I’m selfish,” he gives a sheepish giggle. “I need to be with someone who’ll be kind to me. Who’ll see the world as I see it. I can’t hang out with people who I have nothing in common with. It’d just… we’d end up fighting, and it’ll be stressful for everyone and,” he shrugs. “Yeah.”

“What about you?” he inquires.

“I…” Minho nods. “I see the logic in hyung’s reasons but. To me,” he blinks. He finds it difficult to answer such a question, and this difficulty leads him to reminisce his childhood. Days spent around a large dining table at home, food being heaped on his plate and water splashing into his glass. A hand would stroke his hair back, a soft voice would compliment his height. He’d giggle at something his brother would say, he’d thank his mother for the food. His father would ask for a second serving of rice, his own arm would unhurriedly stretch across the table in answer. He would gulp down every morsel without a second thought to its smell and taste—something he regrets not studying more diligently so he could think back to it when his homesickness is the worst.

“I think I’m happiest when… when all the seats at the dining table are taken,” he murmurs. “And you don’t have to worry about what comes after that.”

He looks up to find Jonghyun smiling fondly at him. “Do you want a family of your own some day?”

Minho lets out a bashful laugh. “Kids would be nice,” he admits.

A slow nod. “I… I used to wonder what it would be like to be a parent,” Jonghyun shares in a voice laced with sweetness. “To… to see a part of me in someone else, to see them carry the best qualities of me even as we both grow older. Ah~” he sounds wistful. “It would’ve made me happy, I think.”

“Hyung is still young,” Minho reasons. “It’s not too late to have children.”

“You think so?” the other’s face is filled with worry. “It may be a bit hopeless for me now.”

Minho laughs. “You’re only thirty years old!” he reasons. “OK, let’s do this, hyung: let’s both find a way to live well and have children. Then they can be close friends too. Like us.”

Jonghyun raises his eyebrows in surprise. “You think… you think something like that would be possible?”

“Yeah! They can go to the same school, play the same sports. We could even buy them an Xbox each so they can play Halo together,” he chortles.

Jonghyun laughs along. “I like the sound of that,” he agrees.

* * *

“Would you like to come up?” Jonghyun invites him again one night.

It’s been so long since he last extended his hospitality to Minho like this. So much has changed in the time between both utterances, that waiting and polite considering are no longer Minho’s first instincts.

He nods readily. “Sure!”

He can’t elucidate on what else he’d been expecting but Jonghyun’s apartment has barely any furnishings. A sofa sits in the middle of the living room, grey carpet spilling around its sides in a classy oblong. It faces a large TV suspended from the opposite wall, which he notes is unusually colored black. No paintings adorn the place, no photographs or souvenirs. The only interruptions to the vertical are doors leading into rooms or cupboards. Besides the stools at the kitchen island, there is no other seating in sight. There are no shelves or chairs or dining tables. Even the kitchen seems impersonal in its gleaming white formica, reflecting a distorted Jonghyun while he moves around the space.

“Chamomile?” he calls out.

“Hmm? Ah, yeah,” Minho accepts. There is small basket in the corner that he assumes is Roo’s usual post, but she must be staying the night with Sodam because he doesn’t hear the pup's paws clacking against the flooring.

“This… I didn’t expect your place to look like this, hyung,” he admits.

“Yeah?” the other’s voice holds an endearing smile. “What did you expect?”

“Hmm… I don’t know. Maybe. Something… messier?” he chuckles. “Or something that’s more. Personal?”

“Hmm,” the man nods. “I recently redecorated the place so,” he turns around. “It **is** half-done.”

Minho nods slowly, approaching the stools and claiming one. He can’t help wonder what it would’ve looked like without the harsh white lights glinting off of everything. He tries to imagine a softer ambience, quirky lamps and a cabinet full of books. Framed pictures of Roo and the family. A large vase or an ornamental planter or even a small robot vacuum working overtime to collect balls of fur. He tries to conjure an image of the place as it would’ve been before it was stripped bare.

A steaming cup is set before him. “Here we are,” Jonghyun offers and brings a stool around to the opposite side of the island. He lets go of a satisfied _ahh_ when he’s settled, fingers wrapped around his own drink. “Nothing like a cup of tea on winter nights,” he grins, the expression lazy and sleepy.

Minho nods but doesn’t take a sip yet. “When did you first move to this place?” he decides to chat while he waits for the drink to cool.

“Oh… not very long ago. Six years?” he’s told. “Interest rates weren’t too bad back then, I remember.”

“Ah! Yeah, you’re right,” Minho recalls his own failed attempts at buying a house last year, when his mother had harangued him about his hyung’s flash new place in Seodaemun. “I’ve been looking to invest as well, but it’s gotten harder now, hasn’t it?”

“Mm,” the other agrees. “Not a good market right now. You’d need some help from your family to buy anything in a decent neighbourhood.”

“Yeah. Or find someone willing to pay half,” Minho jokes. Jonghyun only manages a polite smile. “No… that’s just like setting myself up to be trapped, isn’t it?”

“Hmm?”

Minho raises his eyebrows. “You know. Getting into a relationship. Thinking, yes, things will get better when we’re living together. Things will be easier then. But… that probably never works, does it? If it didn’t work from the start it’s probably never going to, right?”

Jonghyun suddenly looks stiff in his place. “That. That could happen.”

“And then,” Minho gives a tired chuckle. “And then a house comes along. A baby, even. Then you’re trapped. You’ve put yourself into a place you can’t get out of. Not easily, at least.”

Jonghyun takes a deep breath, then chuckles back. “You sound so scared of commitment.”

“No… I’d be happy to commit myself to someone,” Minho reveals. “I’d love to, actually. But. But it isn’t something you’d expect so lightly, right?” he shrugs. “Commitment isn’t something to be. Thrown around, I guess. It’s. It’s very serious. Even if no one takes it seriously anymore.”

“And now you sound old-fashioned,” Jonghyun giggles.

Minho smiles, petting his warm cup. “Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me,” he murmurs. “I’m living in the wrong generation.”

The conversation dwindles. They drink their tea, refill their cups, release drowsy sighs into the warmth of the apartment. Eyes closed and head supported on a propped arm, Minho feels peace seep into his skin. As always he finds his way to a sense of belonging that comes with their meetings. He may feel out of place with his own family. He may feel like an outsider in his own circle of friends. But being with Jonghyun is effortless. He doesn’t need to hold back, he doesn’t need to hide. He can act childish and be goofy. He can share is biggest worries. He can run away from the world to this sanctuary of their time together.

“You look tired,” Jonghyun speaks barely above a whisper. “Has work been busy?”

“Hmm,” Minho hums with his eyes still closed, a smile playing on his lips. “But a lot of it is my fault,” he admits. He hasn’t shared his special project with the other yet. It sits unfinished on his personal computer, the edits and cut scenes still waiting for him to attend to them. When it’s finally completed, it’ll be a present, he thinks. He’ll gift it to Jonghyun.

“You can stay over, if you like?” he’s offered.

Minho opens his eyes and looks at the other in surprise. “Really?”

“I mean. The sofa folds out into a single bed. That’s probably long enough for you, right?”

“I can’t bother you with something like that, hyung,” Minho reasons.

“It’s never a bother,” Jonghyun smiles graciously. “But. I’ll leave it up to you. Just be careful if you’re going back tonight. There’s ice everywhere, you could slip.”

The concern warms Minho. “Thank you, hyung. I’ll be careful.”

“Good!” the other grins. “Well, you better get going, then. Don’t want to be stuck in the snow.”

“Ah, yeah,” Minho stands and begins clearing the counter despite the other’s protests. “Let me at least clean my cup,” he insists, pushing Jonghyun back to his seat.

“So unnecessary…” the other sighs.

Minho chuckles. “You should really consider making this place nicer, hyung,” he calls out over rushing tap water. “There’s so much space! You could get like. Antiques. And wallpaper. And maybe even some toys for Roo! It’d be great, don’t you think—?” he rambles until he notices a mug drying next to the sink. It’s a plain white mug with no discernable features except for the photo printed around its girth. What draws him to it is unclear, but he picks it up anyway to study it closer.

The photo is a high-quality print. He marvels at the level of detail he can make out—two grinning faces, sitting in a car, their teeth bright under their dark sunglasses. Two happy people, their hands resting on top of each other on the gear shift, leaving for a memorable destination or arriving at it. Two men gravitating towards a middle, clearly ecstatic about being together, in each other’s company. Two men very obviously in love with one another.

One face Minho doesn’t recognize. The other belongs to Jonghyun.

He twists the tap off. “Hyung,” he begins, but isn’t sure where to take the rest of his words. So he turns to look at his host, who he finds is staring at him with something akin to fear.

“Th-that…” Jonghyun stutters. “That’s an old friend.”

It doesn’t occur to Minho to refute that self-evident lie, but he suddenly understands why this apartment is so quiet and empty. It isn’t incomplete, as he had first thought it to be. It isn’t in the process of being restored to something more happy and representative of Jonghyun’s own rich personality. Like this mug, it has been abandoned. Half of it, dedicated to another person, has been emptied. And suddenly he knows why Jonghyun sometimes looks at the night sky with so much longing. Suddenly he has an answer to every question he ever asked of Jonghyun that remains unresolved to this day. Suddenly he can see why Sodam noona is so supportive, why Kim eomoni is so protective, why Jonghyun himself is so careful. Suddenly the reason behind Jonghyun’s diffidence makes itself heartbreakingly plain.

“Why… why didn’t you say something, hyung?” Minho asks when the initial shock subsides.

Jonghyun turns himself around. As if the question was never directed at him, he picks up his cup and takes a sip. The seconds tick by but he stays hunched forward, nearly wilting onto the counter. He looks like it will take an inordinate amount of strength from him to give any kind of answer, or even an acknowledgment.

Minho stalks back to his stool. “Hyung,” he repeats with some anger, some betrayal. He can’t justify in that moment why he feels those things, but their shapes are pronounced in his chest. He doesn’t shy from giving them a voice. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want to,” Jonghyun’s tone is biting. He doesn’t move his sight off his tea. “Because this isn’t something you share with… with _other people._ ” The words are nearly spat out, like they’re a derogatory term. A curse. It pricks Minho.

“Not even… not even your friends, then,” he murmurs.

The other finally glares at him. “Talk sense,” he chews the words. “If you were in my place. Would you tell _your_ friends?” he counters. The image of a table heaving with predatory stares comes unbidden to Minho. “Would you be willing to give them something like that? To belittle you with? To let them reject you and make you feel disgusted by what you are? Because that’s what happens, Minho,” he’s informed. “That’s what always happens so—just,” Jonghyun shakes his head and makes a dismissing gesture. “Take your things and go home.”

Minho stares at the man’s infuriated profile. He wants to reach out and touch his arm. He wants to console him for all the rejections he’s had to face so far. But what simmers inside him is not sympathy for the good and kind friend that Jonghyun has been all these months. What tries to force its way out of Minho isn’t compassion, but shame.

“That’s… that’s how little you think of me,” he puts his realization into words.

For the past year, he has thought himself different. He has held himself at a standard above his so-called buddies. He’s always prided in the idea that he is more respectful, more accepting, more honorable than any of them. All this time he has been the best he could be, regardless of what he receives in return. But here is Jonghyun, telling him otherwise. Here is a hyung, a confidante who never once saw him as anything more than another product of this cold discourteous society. In Jonghyun’s eyes Minho is cheap and insulting and not worth anyone’s time. He is just another vulture, just another user.

“That’s how you see me, hyung?”

“Don’t try to make this about you,” he’s berated.

“It never is,” Minho easily answers, shaking his head. The lump in his throat gets tighter and tighter until he feels like it’ll push out of his skin and spill onto the counter. Then he’d look truly pathetic. “Nothing is ever about me, hyung.”

He hurries to get out even as an exasperated voice calls him back. But he’s not coming back. Never again.


	3. Chapter 3

“Oh?” Minseok’s voice is a fusion of surprise and annoyance.

They bump into each other at the entrance of an electronics store. Minho blinks at his brother for a long moment, internally debating if he should turn and rush the other way so they don’t have to speak to each other. It has been nearly a year since they last met, and neither side has made any attempts to change that in the interim.

“What brings you here, then?” the elder asks, shifting shopping bags from one hand to the other.

“Just—” Minho is about to explain how one of his cameras needs a different lens for the project he’s been working on. But he reminds himself that this isn’t Jonghyun. This is Minseok. He probably doesn’t care. _Then again,_ he tells himself, _apparently Jonghyun didn’t either._ The thought threatens to upset him to the verge of tears. He takes a step back and looks around himself at the bustling mall.

“Just getting some stuff,” he mumbles, hoping it will suffice and they will go their separate ways.

Minseok doesn’t say anything for a while, and Minho’s escape plan seems hopeful. But then the elder starts to move closer. “Let’s go have a coffee,” he says in a tone that leaves no room for negotiation.

Still, Minho tries. “Uhh, hyung, maybe some other time—”

“I’m sure you can make some place for me in your busy schedule,” the other vocalises his frustration. “Let’s go. Five minutes,” he points his head at a stall in the middle of the floor.

They leave the cups untouched as they stew in an uncomfortable silence. Minho remembers how he would come home from school every day and skip over to his brother’s room, tell him all about the jokes his friends cracked and the pranks they played on each other. He would narrate his entire day, complete with irrelevant minutiae of who said what in response to who. And Minseok would always listen patiently, laughing or nodding along in all the right places. What changed between them is unclear. Minho can’t point it to one single moment or one specific day. He knows that the decay in their relationship has been gradual and that neither of them ever tried to revive their connection. They both let it fail, they both let it fall apart.

Minho holds his coffee for comfort. Its warmth seeps into his skin and makes him sigh.

“Alice is getting into video games now,” Minseok suddenly proclaims. “I told her how her _samchun_ used to beat my ass at Street Fighter when we were kids. She’s been asking about you ever since, you know?” he chuckles. “When is he going to visit again? Where does he live? Can we go see his house? Does he still play video games?” he pauses here, as if for dramatic effect. “Will he come play with me?”

“She’s a smart kid,” Minho nods a bland compliment, knowing he doesn’t need to respond to the implied question in his brother’s words. “She’ll grow up to exceed all our expectations, you wait and see.” 

“Min ah,” Minseok is patient. “I… know you have your circumstances. And. I know that they’re not anyone’s business. But I hope you know that,” he takes a breath here. “I hope you remember your family sometimes. I hope you remember they still care about you, no matter what.”

Minho scoffs. “Why are you saying all this now?”

“Because I just realised,” the other is ready with his reply. “That I’d like my daughter to grow up knowing her uncle. And I’d like my brother to give his niece the same love he has for everything else.” He raises his eyebrows. “Is that too much to ask for?”

 _No,_ Minho wants to say. _No, I’ve been dying to hear from you. I’ve been dying to come back to you. I’ve been dying all this while, just so I could have this._ But he looks away from the elder’s eyes and reads meaningless neon shop signs over and over in an attempt to exude indifference. He wants to hug his brother. His hyung. He wants to be consoled. He wants to be given sound advice. He wants to be doted on and scolded. He wants to be a family again. But Minho stubbornly suppresses his yearnings, convincing himself it will mean nothing to Minseok.

“I have to get going now, hyung,” he stands and gives the other one last look. With a shallow bow, as if they’re strangers, he begins walking away. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“Come home, Min ah,” Minseok urges even as he’s watching Minho leave. “Come home for dinner some day.”

Minho doesn’t turn back again.

It has been a month since he left Jonghyun’s apartment, and life, for good. And he’s spent every evening since chewing over all they said. All he had thought and felt in those moments when Jonghyun had looked up at him like he was an intruder. He’s spent all his free time going over how he could’ve done something different, how he could’ve stayed and brokered the exchange so it didn’t end on such a bitter and twisted note. He’s even thought of texting the other; of apologising to Jonghyun for being childish and demanding when he had no right. Minho has tried reliving his last night with his closest and dearest friend so far, wishing with all his might that it were anything but.

Jonghyun does not write either. There is only silence from him. He does not make plans for them to meet and reconcile. He does not send blog posts about interesting places to drive to. He doesn’t arrange dinner with Sodam and he doesn’t send any boxes of carefully-prepared radish kimchi from his mother’s kitchen. Jonghyun has cut all ties leading back to Minho. As always, his silences speak volumes more than his parting words. What Minho once admired about the other, he now detests.

At work, he tries to resist the urge to engage with colleagues working on the JT Group project. He endures the constant impulse to casually ask how things are going, and if anything interesting has happened since filming started months ago. He doesn’t want to get involved in rumours or gossip. He doesn’t want word of his interrogations to somehow reach Jonghyun. If distance is what the other wants, he will readily grant it.

But with no more friends left to share his weekends with, he returns to the dating app after a long time. Flipping through the profiles, skimming over the details, he selects a few contacts and waits for them to reply. If he were honest with himself, he dreads it. He dreads returning to that kind of life. He doesn’t want to be that person again. He doesn’t want to be so far removed from his real self that he begins hating even the sound of his own breath as he slips out of someone else’s bed in the middle of the night.

The message tone inevitably goes, punishing him for the choice he has made. But the ID isn’t one he’d been expecting to see again at all.

babelee0718  
  
2021년 12월 9일 목요일  
wat?!  
  
you still doing this shit?!  
  
So are you.  
  
man  
  
youre a real stubborn guy arent you?  
  
And you’re not?  
  
no  
  
im not a guy  
  
idiot  
  
come see me at nine  
  
weathers shit so we'll hang out at mine  
  
What if I say no?  
  
you wont  
  
youre too nice  
  
bring drinks  
  


A small part of Minho feels at ease knowing he doesn’t have to deal with a complete stranger. But another, larger and more punishing territory reminds him of how denigrating it had felt for him to be in Taeyeon’s company. Staring at her text for a while, he considers refusing the invitation. Then he decides to go anyway. He has nothing else better to do with his free time.

This time, he isn’t dressed up. A hoodie and a windbreaker will suffice, he tells himself. It’s not like Taeyeon will do anything special for him either. Plastic bag filled with bottles of soju in hand, he arrives thirty minutes past nine and announces himself in a lazy voice over the intercom.

“You’ve… really let yourself go, haven’t you?” Taeyeon takes in his shabby appearance when he slips off his running shoes in her lobby and hands her the drinks. Ironically, there is some make-up on her face, and when he walks past her to the living room he catches a whiff of perfume.

“Damn,” she appraises. “You look like a guy who’s just declared bankruptcy.”

“Maybe I have,” Minho mumbles.

The apartment is small and holds signs of a rushed tidy-up session. There are shot glasses waiting on a small dining table, and a portable grill sizzling with pieces of meat. The exhaust fan over the cooking range is loud but ineffective. Minho walks over to a window and opens it to let out the smoke starting to build up. Eyes watering, he fans a magazine under a smoke alarm so it doesn’t get triggered. Taeyeon tells him not to worry about the damn thing, it’s been disconnected for months. He can’t even muster the energy to express his shock at that.

He doesn’t know what she’d been expecting out of this meeting, but he’s willing to do anything so he doesn’t have to go back home.

“You live alone?”

“Flatmate’s gone home for Christmas break. She’s a primary school teacher. Gets insane holiday time.”

Minho slumps onto a chair and begins wrapping his share of the meat. “What do you do for work?” he asks with an obvious air of disinterest.

“Nurse,” Taeyeon supplies in an equally detached tone. “Old age home.”

The answer does make him feel some surprise, but he doesn’t push for any more details. They eat and drink quietly until the meat is all gone and the grill is empty. Taeyeon shivers when she closes the balcony window, hugging herself and muttering exclamations about how cold it’s been the last few days.

“Come have another drink,” Minho pours her a glass.

“Nah, I’m good. Can’t be too drunk if we’re going to fuck.”

“It’s my birthday,” Minho reveals. “Have a last one.”

Taeyeon snorts at this, then stares at him for a moment when she realises he isn’t joking. “Oh,” she blinks and returns to the table with a caution in her steps, like she suddenly thinks he needs to be handled with care. “Should I feel honored you’re celebrating with me?” she asks, accepting the glass.

“You can feel however you like,” Minho says. “I won’t judge.”

“What a luxury,” Taeyeon scoffs and clinks her glass against his in a spilled mess of soju. “To small joys, then.”

* * *

They don’t have sex, but they do end up talking for hours.

Taeyeon is like a sponge. She absorbs everything he gives her without doubting it or questioning his sincerity. And in return he does the same for her. It turns out they have more in common than he’d initially thought possible. She takes time to open up about herself, but when he confides his worst fears to her, she relaxes into her chair and brings all her walls down.

Like him, she no longer has any family to speak of. Like him, she can’t hold on to her friends. Like him, she is lonely and despondent about her future. Like him, she feels a pressure to marry and have children and be an adult because everyone else seems to be doing it.

“And if I stay like this. If I stay alone there must be something wrong with me, right?” she echoes his own thoughts. “I want to laugh at all those people who compromise like hell and force themselves to be together. But at least they have someone. Who the fuck do I have?” she lets out a sardonic laugh. Her despair, as thick as it may be, is always clouded over by well-defined pretense. She behaves as others would expect her to, even when she’s speaking openly like this. Minho wordlessly cultivates his sympathy for her.

Like him, Taeyeon is critical of the need to succeed just so she can show off about it. “I don’t want a fancy car and a flash house. I don’t want an attractive boyfriend. I just want to be happy,” she shrugs. “But being happy means having all that. If you have anything less, you’re not entitled to your happiness. You feel like you’re living poorly and people will think less of you for it.” There is so much of her that Minho identifies in himself, he is surprised it took them so long to talk about it.

She doesn’t have a great job, and her workplace is neither encouraging nor conducive to her personal growth. It’s a salary, nothing more. And although he has a passion for his own work, he understands her completely. “I could be amazing at what I do, but it means nothing to anyone. Not even the old farts whose bedpans I need to clean every day,” she shakes her head. “I’m a nameless cog in a machine.”

“This is what you meant,” he nods after a while. “This is what’s unbearable.”

She shrugs. “Isn’t it the same for you?”

Minho doesn’t know what to say to that.

When the light outside turns orange with dawn, he finally gathers his things to leave. She insists he keep in touch, he assures he will. He means it, too. They may not be as close, but one night has left little distance between them. He thinks he can call her a friend without doubting the words. He thinks she’ll say the same about him.

Visiting Minseok’s home for Christmas isn’t something he’d planned beforehand. But when he passes by a game store one day, he knows what he needs to do.

Little Alice is ecstatic when she unwraps her present and skips around the living room with a wireless controller. Minho plays a few games with her, childishly whining when she beats him and joking about how her father wouldn’t even be able to pass the first level. He recognises a lot of Minseok in her behaviour—when she cackles and kicks her legs in the air, when she leaves her sentences unfinished on an ambiguous note, when she separates the mushrooms from her slice of pizza. Minho is overjoyed to find these commonalities.

After their meal, Minseok calls him around to his study for a drink. The apartment is large and modern, but there is plenty in this room to remind him of their home in Incheon. Minseok’s degrees and trophies populate the shelves. His eyes rove over all the photos of them as children, playing football or sitting on swings or wearing silly costumes at a school fair. He thinks back to his own apartment and pities himself for how bare it is in comparison.

“So,” his brother calls attention to himself. “You’ve been OK?”

Minho nods.

“Been up to anything interesting lately?”

There is so much to tell, so much he wants to share. But after all the years of silence, does he have any right to fill that space up again? Is he allowed to do something like that? His mind returns him to Jonghyun, to how fluidly they existed beside each other, how simply their conversations came to them. Minho misses that the most, but before Jonghyun there was Minseok. Before anyone else, his own elder bother had always been there for him. And now here he sits, still waiting to hold and steady Minho when he stumbles.

“… can I ask about something, hyung?” he begins.

Minseok shrugs.

He describes the night at Jonghyun’s apartment, explains the mug he’d found and the revelation he’d arrived at. He shares some of what he’d felt, speaking with some embarrassment how he’d been unreasonable with a man who’d probably faced nothing but ostracism all his life. And as he’s relating the episode to Minseok, he understands more of his own grief. It turns into a limpid mass that spells out the words, clear and coherent. Minho discerns how much it affected him to be seen as an “other” by a close friend. He notes how it reminded him of his school days: of the _sunbae_ who had once helped him, then stood by as Minho was bullied and called names. He equates his parents’ disappointed accusations to the weight on Jonghyun’s shoulders when Minho had demanded an explanation for his secrecy.

The more Minho relates of that night, the more he begins to see things from Jonghyun’s standpoint. And Minseok is kind enough to let him make the discovery on his own.

“But it doesn’t matter that he likes men,” Minho insists. “What matters to me. Is that he didn’t think he could trust me with something like that. It matters that he thought I could hurt him for it.”

“I can see why you’re offended,” the other nods slowly. “He was defensive about it. Against you, who always shared everything with him. And that made you doubt if your friendship means less to him than it does to you. I can see that. But… he’s right, you know. This isn’t about you.”

Minho begins to protest but Minseok talks over him. “I don’t know what it’s like to be like him,” he says when Minho falls silent. “I guess… neither do you? But isn’t it possible he hasn’t been able to fully accept this thing about himself?” he poses. “And if that’s how it is for him… how could he easily share something like that with anyone else? Even you?”

The words take time to sink in, and when they're fully seated in his guilt, Minho hangs his head with shame. “I should’ve been more considerate,” he concludes to himself. “I should’ve been better.”

“Why don’t you try again?” Minseok suggests. Their eyes meet in question and the elder nods encouragingly. “It’s never too late to change things. Text him. Tell him what you really felt. If you really felt it.”

Minho fishes out his phone with the intent to write a long and detailed apology. But he notices the time and groans, pushing the device away from himself. “He’s probably not wanting to hear from me,” he rubs his face in frustration.

Minseok chuckles. “You still haven’t changed,” he shakes his head. “There’s no way for you to know how someone thinks about you. Unless you can read their mind,” he tilts his head in question. “You remember when appa said that to you? After you thought your team lost the inter-school match that year because of you?”

“I **did** miss that pass, you know--”

“Min ah…” Minseok speaks in a chiding tone. “You can’t blame yourself for every little thing that goes wrong. And you can’t hold on to these… insignificant regrets for the rest of your life. If you do, they’re going to eat at you until there’s no Minho left in there,” he points at Minho’s chest. “Can you see what I’m saying?”

Minho frets. “I just...” he sits down heavily. _I want people to like me_ , he means to say. _I want people to think I’m a good person._ But if someone as forbearing as Jonghyun couldn’t see anything to like about him, what hope does he have? Maybe none.

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” he sighs. “I don’t know if… if I’ll ever be able to live without worrying about _how_ to live.”

Minseok studies him for several long and quiet minutes. When he speaks again, there is some regret coloring his own voice. “Listen,” he begins, leaning closer in his seat. “Min ah, listen to me. This world can feel like it’s going to eat you up sometimes. It isn’t always a… a good place, I know. But the only ones who make it a good place are people like you,” he nods. “The way you live. The way you care. The way you are… so full of sincerity. Not everyone can be like you, but when they meet you—when they see you, they wish they were like you,” he reaches out and clutches Minho’s hand. “Live the way you always have. Don’t turn into anyone else.”

Minho stares at his brother until he can’t. Until he has to bend forward and press their joint fingers to his forehead.

It’s a week or two after the new year when the animation team working on his short film gets in touch. “It’s ready for a first edit,” the email says. Minho feels some excitement at the prospect. He has never had his films animated before. At university, he’d stood out like a sore thumb when his assignments were screened in the auditorium. Everyone else in his class was an accomplished animator, while he had relied on film reel to tell his stories. He doesn’t know how this new story will translate into the medium.

The team smiles at him when he walks into the AV room two floors up from his own office. He bows and takes a seat across of them, a still frame on the laptop staring back at him as he waits to be shown his work in motion.

“The script was very good,” one of the animators compliments. “It was really easy to visualise. But… maybe you want to see what we have first?” She turns the laptop to face Minho, and he holds his breath as the scenes come to life. The old man, his bent back, his rusty trowel, the crumbling bricks. He watches with bated breath as the movie plays, and he finds it hard to believe that this is something born from his own imagination.

When the film stops, just shy of ten minutes, he lets out an amazed laugh. Showering the animators with compliments he doesn’t know what else to say for a very long time until more ideas begin to flood his senses. “OK,” he nods. “I think I know how to finish this. We’ll transition to live-action towards the end, and use a voice over to narrate the story. But I’ll need your help.”

The animator smiles wide. “Yes, of course!”

In his excitement, Minho nearly sends Jonghyun a message before he remembers he can’t. As in everything else, he is alone in this momentary happiness.

* * *

At the premiere party of their joint venture, it’s clear that JT Group management has left no expense spared. Live music plays on a low stage in the middle of the room, people are dressed to the nines, the wait staff float around in crisp uniforms wielding trays full of fancy or d’oeuvres. Minho stations himself at the bar, drowning in flute after flute of champagne until all the banter around him melds with the buzz in his intoxicated head.

The movie—an action-packed adventure type with lots of one-liners and clever humor—has landed positive initial reviews. While the script department barely had any time to perfect their portion of work, critics have showered praises on the cinematography made possible by invisible wires and stunt doubles. The lead actors occupy the front of several entertainment magazines, and online search engines are already trending with the possibility of a sequel. Projections say this movie will exceed expectations at the box office, and JT Group is tickled pink.

Minho doesn’t really want to be here, but he has no choice. Showing up means getting noticed, exchanging business cards, remaining within the network. Behind the scenes of everything they do there is only the cold hard clink of money falling into a slot. No art is sustained by artistic desires alone, and backing doesn’t always come with freedom to create. Filmmaking is a business. Something is given in return for something else. He accepts this, grudgingly. But he hasn’t done an iota of work on this stupid movie and yet he is forced to smile and endure the mindless conversations that are the staple of such gatherings.

Jonghyun is at the party too, of course. He has a big hand in the success of this film. But he looks neither pleased nor gratified by this achievement. If anything, he seems gaunt. He looks like he’s been suffering from illness for the last few months. Minho quashes any disquiet or guilt at the observation. He goes out of his way to stay as far away from the man as possible. If he meant nothing to Jonghyun, then Jonghyun means nothing to him anymore either.

“… and they want to make a movie about it, but what’s the point?” someone is ranting next to him. “There’s no way you can make money off of a subject like that. The past is in the past, anyway. Why try to dig it out of a grave, that’s what I always say.”

“I don’t get what all the fuss is about, anyway,” someone else chimes in. “So these women went through hell. Big deal! Everyone went through hell in those days. Why focus on their suffering alone?”

“And then I bet they want special treatment,” a third voice scoffs. “Ridiculous. All this _me too_ bullshit is just getting out of hand, I tell you.”

“Sticking their nose in our personal lives. I feel so wronged, sometimes. No sense of privacy anymore, honestly...”

“What do you think, Minho ssi?”

“Hmm?” he looks up from his glass, frowning at the circle of faces swimming around him. “About what?”

“You know. All this new stuff in the news about. Women’s rights and all that.”

He blinks, breathing slowly. His thoughts are muddled. His tongue finds it hard to form words. He rubs a hand over his face. “I’m… I don’t know,” he mumbles. “Does it. Does it matter what I think?”

“This guy, seriously,” they chuckle. “Yah, how can you say that? Of course it matters!” he’s chided. “Us men need to speak up for ourselves in these times.” Minho blankly nods.

“Yeah.” The drink is starting to affect him. He puts a hand on someone’s shoulder for support. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Let’s do that.”

“This one’s done,” they joke. He wants to say no, he’s fine, he can keep drinking and keep talking and keep nodding along to their bullshit. He’s fine. And when his head begins spinning, he pushes away from them, stumbles across the crowded party to the large and empty balcony. Seoul is twinkling outside. It’s dressed itself up for the special occasion too. He moves forward to say hello to it.

The air is refreshing. He closes his eyes and lets a gentle breeze envelop him, cradling his senses to stillness after all that noise. The barrier rail is cool under his palms. He grips it tightly, swaying a little as he watches someone swimming the length of the bright blue pool only two storeys below him.

“Careful,” a voice hums behind him before joining his side.

There is several feet of distance between them, and Minho thinks of crossing it to shove at the man as he rails angrily about anything and everything. But he doesn’t have the heart to do it. He can’t talk himself into something so insipid. So he stays put and stays quiet.

“You didn’t even say hello,” Jonghyun says in a voice that holds no accusation.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Minho criticizes. The words are so hurtful, he immediately wants to apologize. Jonghyun doesn’t deserve to be wounded by such childishness.

The man sighs. “No,” he clarifies. “No, it isn’t.”

Minho wants to ask him why he’s here, why they’re talking again. He wants to ask him why they’re standing in this place with vigilance in the air between them. He wants to know why he still feels so angry and dissatisfied about how things ended. But mostly he wants to ask why Jonghyun hasn’t texted even once in the last four months.

“Can I… can I talk to you?” the other requests timidly.

“What else are you doing right now?” Minho demands, once again with so much unnecessary venom.

“I mean. Really talk to you,” Jonghyun nods. “Just like we used to.”

Minho glares at him. In the light of the moon he looks so pale and sad. Like a ghost. “No,” he denies. “No. We can never go back to that.”

A heavy disappointment settles on Jonghyun’s face. “Oh,” he manages. “I’m… I’m sorry. I understand.”

He’s halfway back to the sliding doors when Minho launches his assault. “So I was right,” he blames. “I really mean so little to you.”

“No!” Jonghyun looks at him, pleading. “No, you don’t. You really don’t. That—you need to understand. I had my reasons.”

“You were scared?” Minho demands. “That’s what you’re going to say, right? That you were scared of how I’d see you. Of what I’d think of you. You thought I was that kind of person even after all that time—”

“That’s not it,” Jonghyun sounds tired. He sounds close to giving up. “That’s not it, Minho yah.”

“Did you think I would tell others?”

“No.”

“Did you think I’m like that, hyung?”

The other flinches. “No. No, I know you’re not like that.” He pauses a moment, then walks back to the barrier, standing much closer this time. “That wasn’t… I know I said that but. That wasn’t really. That wasn’t the truth.”

Minho turns away from him. “I finally had someone who didn’t want to give up on me,” he grits his teeth. “I finally didn’t have to be more than I already was.”

“And—” Jonghyun nods. “And I was always grateful to you. Always.”

Minho balks at him. “I can’t even tell if you’re lying anymore.”

“I’m not. I’m telling you now,” the other assures. “Will you listen?”

He grips the railing again, holding himself back. He wants to run. He wants to leave. He can push people away too, he thinks. He can beat them down and make them feel just as worthless as he's made to feel. He can do it. But Jonghyun already looks so small beside him. He already looks so helpless.

“The man, from the photo,” he’s told. “He left me. And so. I gave up,” Jonghyun shrugs. “I thought—I thought that’s it. That’s all the world had in store for me. Six years, and he’s gone. No one else would ever look at me like that again. No one else will see me as more than a strange man with problems. But then you,” he stares at the glowing swimming pool. “Then you did.”

Minho’s pulse stutters and jumps in his throat. No one has ever spoken to him like this. No one has ever been so gentle, so adoring. In fact, he thinks, no one has ever felt like this about him. And with that realization something falls into place inside him with a clear wooden sound. He frowns at the man, watching his every measured breath. Jonghyun looks as fragile as Minho feels. He looks like he’ll break at a mere suggestion.

“I wanted to question it,” the other continues in a shaky voice. “I didn’t want to believe it. That someone saw me as—as a person. Another human being.” He releases a soundless laugh and hurriedly swipes at his face. “When you hate yourself so much, you can’t believe that kind of thing. You think you’re seeing stuff that isn’t really there.”

“Hyung—”

“I’m nearly done, let me finish,” Jonghyun shifts, his focus dropping to his feet. “I never once doubted you. I never thought poorly of you. But I didn’t tell you what I am because. I think nothing of myself. And because I was convinced you wouldn’t want to hear it.”

Minho softens his gaze, softens his voice, softens his entire being before he breaches the air between them. “People like to hear that, hyung,” he promises. “They like to hear someone likes them.”

Jonghyun shakes his head. He looks up at Minho, a pursed smile on his face. “No,” he insists. “Nobody wants to know a gay man likes them. Nobody thinks that’s flattering. It’s… it’s embarrassing. It’s not nice at all.”

“I think it’s nice,” Minho claims. “I think—I’m flattered, hyung.”

Jonghyun searches his face, like he’s trying to catch any trace of deceit. And when he finds none, he still keeps his distance. He’s as careful as he always is, he’s as tentative as he always used to be. He still holds a shield up like he expects a volley to pierce through his skin. But his hand slowly slides over the railing until their fingers are almost touching.

“You… you are,” he gulps.

Minho wants to pull them close and never separate again.

* * *

The truth is, this is all new to Minho.

For the first few weeks he feels shy. They may have known each other before then, and they may have spent inordinate amounts of time together for the length of a year. But when they’re holding hands in public, when they’re pressed next to each other on the subway, when there’s no space between them on the sofa, he feels ridiculously shy.

“It’s like your face is on fire,” Jonghyun laughs at him, touching his cheeks, leaning in to kiss his forehead. Minho whines and complains and calls the other mean, but really he likes the attention. He likes when they joke with each other, laughing so carelessly that they sometimes forget the time.

Kissing doesn’t come easily. It doesn’t come naturally. At first, Minho keeps his eyes shut and grips Jonghyun’s wrists hard enough to leave marks. And when he finds nothing wildly astounding about it, when it just feels natural and unhurried, it becomes an easy habit. Now the long silences between their conversations are filled with kisses. Minho takes every excuse to crane in between them, sometimes with a smile, sometimes when Jonghyun is still not finished saying what he was saying.

The truth is, it doesn’t make Minho feel any less of a man.

If anything, it makes him feel more like himself. He slips into the interstices of Jonghyun’s schedules so comfortably, he doesn’t even think to question it. They meet often, resuming their usual trips across the country. They last longer now, and Minho hums when they lie next to each other under a starry sky, their fingers intertwined.

Sometimes Sodam joins them too, teasing them endlessly when they share their food or talk about the more romantic places their drives lead them to. Once, when Kim eomoni says he’s like another son Minho returns to feeling like an honorary Kim, moreso than before. Minseok invites him to lunch one day and, on hearing about Jonghyun, extends all his following invitations to them both. Alice is bashful around the newcomer, but when Jonghyun makes silly faces and tells her stories in ridiculous voices, she immediately names him her new favorite.

Despite this, Minho’s parents remain distant as always. On her next visit, when Minho’s mother asks him again if he likes men, he turns to her with calmness and replies, _no. I don’t like men. But I do like someone who happens to be a man. He likes me a lot too. Maybe someday you’d like to meet the person who makes your son happy._ He says it with no shame, with some pride even. In that moment he remembers how all the nameless valentines cards and chocolates he had ever received in college had never meant anything to him. They were empty praise, expressed in an immature whim. Jonghyun may not give him compliments outright, but his silent fondness still means more in comparison.

The truth is, Minho has never been liked by anyone.

He’s sure of it, when Jonghyun first asks him to move in. No one has given so much credence to what he means to them, hugging him tightly when he agrees. No one has ever kissed him like that, or looked at him with so much happy expectation, that he feels almost smug about it. He knows now that the women who he’d meet for dinner dates were just lonely like him. They weren’t looking for anything more than a few nights of comfort. The awareness of this is strengthened when they’re finally done unpacking Minho’s things and the apartment looks whole again. It’s like fate, he wants to say. It’s like I was always supposed to be here.

He doesn’t know if that’s true, of course. He doesn’t know if Jonghyun was always meant to let his life be wrapped with Minho’s. Some things are still very distant between them—like the accidental slip of the ex’s name when they’re talking. Or the strictness with which Roo’s feeding and walking routine needs to be followed. Or arguments that sprout whenever Minho is working too late. Being with each other doesn’t feel so fateful in those moments, but it doesn’t turn sour despite them. They find other places to grow closer. They find other things to like about each other.

The truth is, Minho has always wanted to be loved.

And Jonghyun is filled with nothing but love. When they’re kneeling in front of each other and he explains in an undertone. When his hands are careful and his lips deliberate. When he blinks his golden eyes and offers a golden smile, every touch of his palms leaving traces of gold on Minho’s body. When every halt of his lips builds a shimmering trail of red and gold and love. When his arms bind them together so tight. When his hips crash them together so hard. When his whispers are nothing but bracketed repetitions of his actions. When his weight on Minho is heavy and floating at the same time. When his grip is unrelenting and freeing at the same time. When his voice is full and hollow at the same time. When he gasps against Minho’s throat, spilling some of his love and leaving it between them as he kisses every breath out of their lungs—he is giving Minho his love. He is building a solid immovable bridge between their lives, one that could never collapse or buckle under pressure.

There is never any doubt about it. Jonghyun makes sure to underscore all his words with the emotion. They may have disagreements. They may not always be unquestioningly happy with each other. But when Minho grins at their reflections as they stand next to one another every morning, they finally look content.

The truth is, it takes two years for Minho to give Jonghyun his gift.

The film has long been uploaded to the studio’s website and has registered several thousand views already, but Minho doesn’t share it with anyone. He waits until he thinks the time is right and then he leaves it on the kitchen counter one morning, noting it with a nervous scribble of _watch me alone_. When he comes home that day, having completely forgotten about it, he finds Jonghyun beaming at him. There are stars in his eyes too, just like the boy in the film, and if Minho squinted he thinks he’d find them on top of the infinite ladder that reaches for the moon.

Jonghyun doesn’t need to say anything. He doesn’t have to put his feelings into a formal verbal expression. Minho takes one look at the little black box in his hold and he instantly knows what he means.

“If we can,” he says with no hesitation, rushing forward with a grin. “If it’s possible, then yes.”

“We’ll make it possible,” Jonghyun grins.

There is no ceremony. There is no celebration. They drive early one morning to the courthouse and register themselves--not as a couple, but at least as co-owners of the apartment they share. It’s a small victory. Signing their names next to each other doesn’t feel like anything momentous. There is no intimacy or excitement in the act. It’s ordinary, like something they’d been putting off for a long time and had finally got around to doing. The registrar notices the matching rings on their hands and is kind when he congratulates them both as they’re about to leave. It remains a tiny secret between them all the way until they’re home. Then Minho goes into a frenzy and calls every single person he knows to boast about finally being married.

The truth is, having a little makes him want more.

Minho understands the challenge of it, even if he insists on trying anyway. Jonghyun warns him about the disappointments long before their inbox fills with rejection letters from every orphanage in the city. But the hope is sustained. He doesn’t give up. He stays optimistic even when all their options start closing up forever.

“Can I not be enough?” Jonghyun asks him one night after he’s spent all his patience trying to convince Minho to stop.

But it isn’t about being enough, he wants to say. The contentment he feels with Jonghyun does not negate his long-held wishes. The steady comfort of being in love is not everything. What Minho truly wants—what he has always wanted—is to be a **good** father. What he wants is to raise a child with nothing but love and kindness, so that it will somehow eliminate all the vulnerabilities the two of them had to grow up with.

“You are enough,” he replies. “Always.”

“Then let’s not hurt ourselves anymore.”

“Yeah. Let’s not,” Minho concedes, knowing his selfish longings are only fed by the long-unhappy parts of him that are lonely despite Jonghyun. But he secretly doesn’t let go of them. He still tries, contacting foreign organisations that could help complete his incomplete life. He stays up late every night to speak to them on the phone, struggling to explain himself in broken English so they will understand why he is the way he is. And when one of them comes through, after a difficult legal brawl when they finally bring home a baby girl who coos and stares at them while they watch her in disbelief, Minho thinks he must be dreaming.

The truth is, Jonghyun is right. Sometimes Minho doesn’t want things to ever end.

They spend a long time on the short film. Jonghyun blames his insomnia on the screenplay and everything he wants it to be. Minho reads through all his edits and says there’s nothing he doesn’t like about any of it.

“It’s all great! I don’t know what you’re so worried about,” he says while he’s rocking their daughter to sleep.

“You’re saying that cause you’re partial,” he stands at the stove, boiling a pot of milk.

Minho laughs at him. “Of course I’m partial. I like everything you ever write!”

The filming takes hardly any time at all. Taeyeon happily volunteers herself, joking about how she’s always wanted to be a big movie star. She’s a natural at it, too. Minho doesn’t need to direct her with any added effort. She reads a scene, asks Jonghyun why he wrote it a specific way, and then she becomes the full embodiment of the character she’s playing. At home, they play back her dubbed dialogues and gasp at the natural delivery, at how she fills each pause with emotion.

Six months later, after a thousand hours of editing, it’s ready to be submitted to a short film festival. Minho bounces his foot as he stares at the upload bar. Jonghyun announces he’s taking the baby and Roo for a stroll, and disappears for several hours. When he returns, he looks more nervous than he did when he left.

“You think people will like it?” he mutters groggily.

Minho thinks for a long time before he replies. “Does it matter?” he smiles. “We liked making it. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

Jonghyun hums and pulls them closer, burying his head in the crook of Minho's neck. “I made something with you,” he mumbles happily, making them both laugh.

The truth is, Minho doesn’t like sex. He doesn’t like relationships and the parts he needs to play in them. He doesn’t like having to be perfect. He doesn’t like having to live up to a standard. He doesn’t like being chivalrous or charming or affable. He doesn’t like coming up with interesting things to talk about so the silences don’t feel prickly or awkward. He doesn’t like the way he has to be everything people expect him to be when they see him, when they judge him before he even opens his mouth. He doesn’t like being anything other than himself.

And Jonghyun accepts it like he accepts breathing.


End file.
